Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
SC, the situation with your grandmother is totally unacceptable and should be reported.
As an RN, I sometimes floated to the ER. Anyone presenting with chest pain went in a wheelchair straight back to a room and was hooked to a monitor. If all rooms were filled grandmother could have lain in a gurney in the hall hooked up. to a portable monitor.
Not just poor treatment in small town hospitals though. During the height of Covid friend's doctor told her to go to the large city hospital as her oxygen level dropped. She was carted off in an ambulance and dumped into a crowded ER where she sat for 4 hours, warning people not to sit next to her. Finally called husband to come pick her up.
I fail to understand why so many people fail to maintain good health habits. Some medical situations cannot be avoided but good preventative practices can't hurt.
SC, the situation with your grandmother is totally unacceptable and should be reported.
As an RN, I sometimes floated to the ER. Anyone presenting with chest pain went in a wheelchair straight back to a room and was hooked to a monitor. If all rooms were filled grandmother could have lain in a gurney in the hall hooked up. to a portable monitor.
Not just poor treatment in small town hospitals though. During the height of Covid friend's doctor told her to go to the large city hospital as her oxygen level dropped. She was carted off in an ambulance and dumped into a crowded ER where she sat for 4 hours, warning people not to sit next to her. Finally called husband to come pick her up.
I fail to understand why so many people fail to maintain good health habits. Some medical situations cannot be avoided but good preventative practices can't hurt.
Report it to what?
The Tennessee Department of Health approved this hospital merger years ago, even though there were many advisements that it would likely result in negative patient outcomes. The hospital system's patient care advocates are powerless and/or don't care. There are several local advocates who've done a lot of work on this issue with the government to no success.
The bottom line is that anyone/anything that could help, is in the tank for the system. 12+ hour waits in the ED are commonplace.
Being "close to medical" doesn't mean anything here. The nearest quality care is a couple of hours away.
I find it amazing the number of people who believe that just because you are within x miles of a "world class" medical center you are going to get "world class" care. Doesnt always work like that sorry to say. Hope it never happens to you or family or friends.
Very true. A wealthy man (family owns a lot of NYC real estate) who used to ride the train with me was talking about this some years ago already. There was an incident in Central Park where a jogger was raped and beaten (not the infamous incident with the guys who were eventually found to be innocent, another one) and left for dead.
The first day, in the news, it said she had only a 20% chance of survival, and she had not yet been identified. The next day, she was said to have an 80% chance of survival.
It turned out she was of Armenian descent, the same as my train mate, and he knew the family through the community and so knew who she was. When I mentioned that it sounded as if she was doing better, he said, "That's because she was identified and her family has money. She's been moved to another hospital where she'll get better care."
He went on to say that this makes him angry about the health care in our country, even though he is one who can easily afford healthcare. His aunt had a stroke while walking on a sidewalk in the city, and fell unconscious to the ground. She was taken to a nearby hospital and given minimal care "until I showed up with my checkbook, and then suddenly all sorts of life-saving measures were being taken".
Yes, you are correct. You can live next door to the greatest hospital in the city, but it won't help you if you don't have money or the right insurance.
Near specialists, such as an oncologist (that I still need to see every 6 months), dentists and doctors within a 30 to 40 min radius.
That is simple. We have a Cancer Center about 30 minutes away, and two hospitals 25 minutes away.
My Dw has had five heart attacks. During her latest two HAs, as she was popping her nitro pills she drove herself to a hospital. LOL
We have a friend who lives in the city, on the same block as a hospital. She thinks it is great. The electric grid is required to be extra sturdy in the vicinity of a hospital. So when everywhere else in this region suffers black outs, she still has power. In my mind, she is 'close' to medical.
I find it amazing the number of people who believe that just because you are within x miles of a "world class" medical center you are going to get "world class" care. Doesnt always work like that sorry to say. Hope it never happens to you or family or friends.
A different take from Mightyqueen801. Of course, just because someone is close to a world class medical center doesn't, in and of itself, guarantee world class care, let alone better medical outcomes. But, you are more likely to receive it if you are in one. And, you are not going to receive much care if you are far from a medical facility. The data on it is not clear cut but negative correlation between distance and medical outcomes cannot be ruled out.
Objectives
To investigate whether there is an association between differences in travel time/travel distance to healthcare services and patients' health outcomes and assimilate the methodologies used to measure this.
Results
108 studies met the inclusion criteria. The results were mixed. 77% of the included studies identified evidence of a distance decay association, whereby patients living further away from healthcare facilities they needed to attend had worse health outcomes (eg, survival rates, length of stay in hospital and non-attendance at follow-up) than those who lived closer. 6 of the studies identified the reverse (a distance bias effect) whereby patients living at a greater distance had better health outcomes. The remaining 19 studies found no relationship. There was a large variation in the data available to the studies on the patients' geographical locations and the healthcare facilities attended, and the methods used to calculate travel times and distances were not consistent across studies.
-------------------------------
A more recent focused study in connection with Covid did confirm the relationship between outcomes and distance.
Objective
COVID-19 has caused tremendous damage to U.S. public health, but COVID vaccines can effectively reduce the risk of COVID-19 infections and related mortality. Our study aimed to quantify the association between proximity to a community healthcare facility and COVID-19 related mortality after COVID vaccines became publicly available and explore how this association varied across racial and ethnic groups.
Results
Residents living farther from a facility had higher COVID-19–related mortality across U.S. counties. This increased mortality incidence associated with longer distances was particularly pronounced in counties with higher proportions of Black and Hispanic populations.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
