So what is emergency?

Koreano said:

How bad shape do you have to be, in order for hospital to think it's real emergency?

Yesterday I had to make a trip to HOMS and we sat through over 5 hours for my wife to go in to go in to emergency room. I know everyone is different and even smallest thing seems larger than life for loved one, but as I hang around near emergency room for more then 10 hours, I noticed people are in bad shape and others seems normal(walked in and out in 2 hours). As it got more crowed it has gotten worse and worse. There was a little kid almost passed out clinging on to his father barely and father finally gave up to be called and screamed and ran in and there was a kid who seems normal but threw up once and were sent in to emergency room immediately and walked out in less then couple of hours.

My wife was in bad shape as well, pale, temp at 104 degree and going over, vomited couple of times at home and almost another time in waiting room. I think just as she was passing out she got into the emergency room as she doesn't remember many of the things before and after she was wheeled in. She hanged in there like a champ and now she said she is little better since she is home now.

If someone knows if there a way to speed things up, please let me know. And please tell me there's some kind of secrete emergency room for those that are seriously hurt, like a car or other critical accidents. This would make me feel a lot better.

And another one.
What is the deal with absolutely no kids in emergency room? So if I don't have anybody that is close enough to leave my kid, I have no choice but to wait outside? As long as the person who is being treated is ok, I don't think it's really a necessary. I don't want to call up people to leave their work/home/what ever for non critical matter. (Does US have same rule?) I don't remember as I am dead tired.

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Ha - sounds like Canada. Good 'ole social health care. I was in emerg. this past week because I had a fever more than 100, no energy and problems breathing. I took 5 hours to see a doctor who offered no help at all and sent me home which is the norm here.

a bribe usually gets service in socialized health care. It works everywhere else in the DR. Havent had the pleasure of medical facilities yet but a couple hundred pesos go a long way.......

cjewell said:

Ha - sounds like Canada.

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Emergency rooms in NY are the same.

It's all perception. There is a very simplified triage philosophy called 'sick'/ 'not sick'. Medical professionals with at least a a couple years of experience can decide whether or not you are going to die soon just by looking at you. Because you only go the emergency room a few times during your life time, you perceive it as an emergency. The more discomfort, the more visual the symptoms the bigger the emergency, right? Not true, because that emergency room is full of people with fevers who are vomiting.

Medical professionals are also trained to look past distracting injuries. To a lay person vomiting, a broken limb, bleeding are very traumatic and emergent. But these are not necessarily immediate life threats. As an example: The ER has one open bed, two patients come in at the same time. One is an 8 year old child who fell out of a tree. He has broken ankle, and a few small cuts and bruises. He is crying, and the parents are very stressed out and anxious. The second is a healthy looking 70 year old women whose only complaint is some left arm pain. The pains not bad, it's been on and off for the last two days, nothing traumatic happened. The child LOOKS bad, he's crying has bumps and bruises, and his ankle is deformed. The women looks fine. She gets the ER bed. Why, because I know that even though a broken ankle looks gross, it is not life threatening. There is a good chance the woman is having a heart attack, because elderly women have vague symptoms, and atraumatic left arm pain is one of them.

To a doctor a child crying is a good thing. It is when the child stops crying, that you need to worry.

The only way to speed things up is to be sicker. Lie and say you have chest pain. But, know that is a tactic often reserved for drug seekers and homeless people looking for a meal and a bed.

As far as kids not being allowed, that is usually reserved for emergency rooms and intensive care units. There are a lot of things happening that children just should not see, and if you are trying to treat someone who is sick, having to climb over family members is frustrating. ERs are only so big, the fewer the people the better. That's not a law or a rule per se, but a hospital policy.

I went direct to the emergency (of Clinica Abreu in SD) and was treated at once. Maybe it depends on where one enters the hospital.

drSix said:

Because you only go the emergency room a few times during your life time, you perceive it as an emergency. The more discomfort, the more visual the symptoms the bigger the emergency, right? Not true, because that emergency room is full of people with fevers who are vomiting.

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I've been to emergency probably 20 times in the 4 years I live here again (not for myself, I think I went twice). Emergency here is more like: id like to be taken a look at and the doctor office is closed. Mostly it were the kids though.

Salsafan said:

I went direct to the emergency (of Clinica Abreu in SD) and was treated at once. Maybe it depends on where one enters the hospital.

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That's true...I have been to the ER of Abel Gonzalez and of Corazones Unidos. I have never waited for more than 15 minutes and most of the time I don't have to wait at all.

Mauricio said:

I've been to emergency probably 20 times in the 4 years I live here again (not for myself, I think I went twice). Emergency here is more like: id like to be taken a look at and the doctor office is closed. Mostly it were the kids though.

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Yea, I have no experience with DR emergency rooms, so it was just a guess. That issue is prevalent in the US also, there are (or were) so many uninsured people that many used the ER as a free clinic. A lot of newer hospitals are incorporating an urgent care into their emergency rooms.

Mauricio said:

That's true...I have been to the ER of Abel Gonzalez and of Corazones Unidos. I have never waited for more than 15 minutes and most of the time I don't have to wait at all.

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The only predictable wait time in the US:

Short (not busy):
Super Bowl Sunday, during the Super Bowl
The day of a Holiday
During a snow storms

Long (busy):
1 hour after the Super Bowl is over
The day after a Holiday (never go to the ER on the monday after a holiday weekend, you will wait forever)
The day before or after the snowstorm.

ALWAYS, have "Sever Chest Pain" as your "First Symptom", THEN your "REAL PROBLEM" once you see the doctor!!!!
CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC

Well HOMS is private not public, right, so they must provide the same service as here in SD. I, too, have never had to wait long at Abreu in the emergency room.

It must be the chichichi that is overwhelming them. Did they at least talk to you about your wife's symptoms?

Did she get a diagnosis? Any treatment?

I have to admit, I more quickly agree when my wife says she think one of our children should go to emergency, then when she says she wants the doctor to see them. Mothers, and especially dominican mothers want to bring their child to the doctor for anything, a cough, bad smell in their mouth, little fever, etc. The good thing of the ER is that the insurance pays the doctor AND the medicines they want you to take and any extra tests or X-rays, long photos, ECG, etc. they want to do. Since I'm paying insurance to get something out of it I prefer that then bring him to the doctor who will tell us to do the same tests, but then I have to pay a part of it.

When we had our emergency and went to CMC in Sosua, we were seen immediately. First by the emergency room doctor and then within 15 minutes by the specialist. Luckily it was during a work day and the specialist was at the hospital.

been to emergency in POP, clinica brugal, several times. usually i arrive with the last stage of migraine so i vomit and shake uncontrollably. on those occasions i have been always attended straight away (IV and a shot of painkiller and i am good to go, i need to learn how to inject myself).

then last time i went with some stomach bug. i was slouched on the chair, pale like sun bleached butthole of an arctic fox burrowing in a pile of a freshly fallen snow in the middle of a hailstorm waiting for my turn when the owner shown up. i was rushed in to see a doctor immediately.

so partially down to the clinic, to your state and to whom you know.

Koreano said:

How bad shape do you have to be, in order for hospital to think it's real emergency?

Yesterday I had to make a trip to HOMS and we sat through over 5 hours for my wife to go in to go in to emergency room. I know everyone is different and even smallest thing seems larger than life for loved one, but as I hang around near emergency room for more then 10 hours, I noticed people are in bad shape and others seems normal(walked in and out in 2 hours). As it got more crowed it has gotten worse and worse. There was a little kid almost passed out clinging on to his father barely and father finally gave up to be called and screamed and ran in and there was a kid who seems normal but threw up once and were sent in to emergency room immediately and walked out in less then couple of hours.

My wife was in bad shape as well, pale, temp at 104 degree and going over, vomited couple of times at home and almost another time in waiting room. I think just as she was passing out she got into the emergency room as she doesn't remember many of the things before and after she was wheeled in. She hanged in there like a champ and now she said she is little better since she is home now.

If someone knows if there a way to speed things up, please let me know. And please tell me there's some kind of secrete emergency room for those that are seriously hurt, like a car or other critical accidents. This would make me feel a lot better.

And another one.
What is the deal with absolutely no kids in emergency room? So if I don't have anybody that is close enough to leave my kid, I have no choice but to wait outside? As long as the person who is being treated is ok, I don't think it's really a necessary. I don't want to call up people to leave their work/home/what ever for non critical matter. (Does US have same rule?) I don't remember as I am dead tired.

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It is like going to a bakery or a deli in a supermarket. Take a number and get in line . I am sure these places are under staffed with limited resources and generally are doing the best they can. Unless you are in the middle of death throws don't expect the service to speed up any time soon. Manana, Manana, en la Menana.