Health Care ethics (eloisel,Sarek and others)

[RobL]

Granted, I was at a private hospital and probably could have asked to be transferred to county but that's a learning hospital and I'd rather have doctors who know what the hell they're doing and I paid the price.

If you have ever gone to the zoo commonly called "County USC Med Center", you'll know that going to a county hospital - ANY county hospital - is out of the question. And yes, I know you live in the OC, or Riverside, or whatever. Chances are your county hospital is just as bad.

(that's also why I have little sympathy for Friday - I've been back there when they've had gurneys stacked four deep, in rows of twelve on a wall for critical patients (shot, stabbed, etc). Granted, they were mostly non-life threatening wounds, but it just goes to show that sometimes a rotten gall blader isn't the most important thing around.)

 

[Grammour Boy]

I think this whole discussion by proponents on both sides point to one thing, and only one thing: The urgent need for universal health care.

Emergency Rooms should be just that: for emergencies only. The reason why E.R.'s are so taxed and E.R. patients are so frustrated is because the E.R. is being used in ways it was never designed for. For example, routine medical care should be dispensed by personal physicians not by the E.R. staff.

Unfortunately, the lack of universal health care has caused emergency rooms to be used as substitutes for general preventive medicine. And by the time the patient consults with the E.R. it is often too late and the illness has progressed to a more severe state requiring expensive procedures to be performed by overworked E.R. staff...making the whole experience a bad one for everyone involved.

-GB