Last Wednesday night my wife became ill and she wanted to go to the emergency at Kaiser hospital.( she has to be awfully sick to go to the hospital). We arrived at 7:30 pm.
We go in and the place is packed, SRO, luckily we were able to find two chairs together. About and hour and a half later she is called in to get her vitals checked.
They are pretty consistently calling names for vitals checking of newer patients and you could see a lot of elderly and very young children waiting. Once in a while someone would be called into the ER. So we wait, and wait, and wait. Remember it started at 7:30 pm and now it's just before midnight. We can hear the receptionist telling newly arrived patients that there are some who have waited 10 hours to be seen. I tell my wife, as she is bent over, cramping, that we could go home for awhile and get a little sleep and then come back. But she tells me that she may lose her turn so she wants to stay. Of course we see patients that came after us get called in before us. Guessing those are more urgent. All the time my wife has abdomen pain.
Well soon it's 2 am and the waiting area is thinning out a little because people are getting upset for having to wait so long. Some are going home for a bit, then coming back. hmmmmm.
Now it's 4:30 am and I can feel my head bobbing as I'm drifting off. My wife has her head on my shoulder then wakes up again and repositions herself. Yes it's 4:30 in the morning! But wait! There's more! I begin to see the sunrise at 6 am and go up to the receptionist to ask how much longer. Her reply is "Some patients have been here 12 hours." We're getting close. She then tells me the shift change is at 7 am and hopefully there are more dr.'s coming on . then my wife gets called...for vitals again!!!!!! We are both thinking this is just ridiculous!!
So 7 am rolls around and other patients come in and sit down and this guy tells his wife "The receptionist said there are people who have been here 12 hours!" He tells her that they will wait until 7:30 am and then decide to go or not if she isn't called.
At 7:30 am my wife is finally called into the ER, exactly 12 hours of waiting in the uncomfortable chairs in the waiting area. She was admitted , tested scanned and released on Monday morning. Luckily she is felling better and told me "Next time we are calling 911!" I'll pay the $300.
I do have to say that my wife has taken me to the ER before and I have never waited anything like that before...maybe because I am a type 1 diabetic. |
