Man dies after being turned away by 14 hospitals

TOKYO - A 69-year-old Japanese man injured in a traffic accident died after paramedics spent more than an hour negotiating with 14 hospitals before one admitted him, a fire department official said Wednesday.

Source


It is a sad story, but likely to become more prevelant if we don't start to address the increasing shortage of Physicians and Nurses.


[edit on 09/20/2008 by Amniodarone]

How horrid!
Oh the poor man!

My heartfelt prayers go out to his friends and family - I can only imagine their frustration level and their pain!

Recently a co-worker of mine fell from an avocado tree and broke his arm, rent a huge gash over his left eye and obviously crushed the bone underneath the avulsion.
I called the equivalent of 911 and felt a relief when the ambulance arrived.
The relief was short lived.
I worked for 6 years as a paramedic in the states.
I was expecting professionalism and courtesy.
I didn’t get either - neither did he.
They yelled at him and made him walk to the ambulance because using a scoop stretcher on the stairs was too much trouble.
Entering the hospital it took 7 hours for him to be seen.
In this time I tried to check on him numerous times only to get yelled at and told to stay out!
I was completely freaking as the doctor was allowing this man to SLEEP!
Anyone who knows anything knows you don’t allow a head injury of any kind to sleep.
Well the horror story continued.
Later, once they found him a bed - I was told to go get his *stuff* from home.
*Stuff* includes sheets, pillow case, pajamas, soap, eating utensils, napkins and of course, toilet paper.
No joke.
They supplied the bed and the *professional* (ha ha) services.
Medicine? They didn’t even supply two kinds of medicine he needed, I was forced to go to a local pharmacy and buy it for him.
It took a week for them to operate on his arm (plate and screws to reattach the bone?)?
Only later did they find (after the surgery!!!) he has a heart condition.
Also, another bone in his face broken.
Amazing the guy didn’t die under the *care* given.

I don’t know exactly what my point is other than I hear people complain all the time about the hospitals in the States.
Can you imagine how people would scream and cry if it was like so many other places in the world!
And my Gawd - In the hospital without a television!
EEEKKKK!

peace

That's disgusting 14 hospitals?
That's beyond sad that's insane!

I do my best to avoid hospitals. I just don't trust most doctors. I prefer to keep my life in my hands, not the hands of doctors. And I'd personally rather not be resuscitated if I've "died". Why spend so much time in pain just to continue living in a worthless world.

This reminds me of a Guy I know who used to live near me and who had a serious heroin problem.

When he wanted to get off it, he visited a half dozen hospitals and a half dozen drug rehab centers for the free treatment.. none would help him because his address placed him in a loophole in the system where he was noone's problem, they kept referring him to the other centers.

He went home and hung himself, his parents found him the next day after kicking in his door.

[edit on 5/2/09 by Dermo]

reply to post by Dermo


I think I saw that in trainspotting.

Seriously, WTF is up with no one helping people any more? My God. The other night, my lady friend and I were on our way to the casino. As we were going around a curve, a car going in the opposite direction, weaved and went off the road as they passed us. Obviously drunk, driving too fast, and damn near killed us. We stopped and turned around to go back and help.

Someone almost kills me and I try to help them, yet a hospital, which is set up to help, turns people away. This is crap.

You can expect to see more of this type of thing when we get socialized medicine in the U.S. We're already dangerously close to it now.

Nurses and doctors are "burned out" by the time they get through with their training.

Everyone of us are overloaded with more work than 5 people can reasonably be expected to do. We're spit on, puked on, pooped on. We have angry imbeciles who deliberately try to infect us with their diseases, cough in our faces and don't even try to cover their mouths or turn their heads.

Most of the people who come in the emergency department are not emergency cases. They are clinic cases. But they don't have insurance so they come for "free" treatment and proceed to dictate medical treatment based on pseudo medical shows they've seen on television.

Most of them treat their stay in the hospital as though they were in a 5 star resort; sending the food back, complaining about the "service", demanding instant everything, refusing to do the simplest things for themselves.

I agree the poor guy in the above story got a raw deal but with so many inappropriate people taking up the available health care services, people in genuine need will be going without.

That heroin thing happened in a crappy movie I saw where there were these buddies a white guy and a black guy and they were in some trouble and figured that going to rehab would be the best thing but rehab wouldnt take them for a number of bureaucratic reasons so they ended up in an ally stabbing each other with a pocket knife to get admitted to a hospital.

Anyway, how do you get more doctors and nurses in a field that sucks? They have to go into massive debt for the schooling, work for years before making any money, work terrible hours, see pain, disease and death regularly, face constant threats and lawsuits from patients and non-patients...

It seems only somebody with a divine calling would bother to get into the field. Either a divine calling or a family tradition of being doctors.

As far as socializing it goes it'll get much worse. No good can come of some removed government body deciding who deserves care and who doesnt. You think things are bad with private insurers denying payment just wait until the already bankrupt Lord government gets to decide. I guarantee anyone receiving Social Security while not paying into the system (think grandma and grandpa) will slide right to the bottom of the list. If they cant work or die in some war they are no good to Lord government. This "triage" is already taking place in the UK and Canada.

My advice, get the hell out of urban and densely populated areas.

I agree. I've said it before but I'll repeat myself here for those who missed it.

We have an aging population (median age is over 45=about the time most people start needing some sort of health care).

We have an AIDS epidemic among our young people (tax base).

We have insurance companies going bankrupt in droves.

We have a shortage of nurses and doctors.

What one stroke of the pen will solve all these health care crisis issues? Let the people die.

That also is starting to creep into our legislation. Ethics committees, DNR's, hospice, Terry Schiavo, California allowing healthcare workers to decide (not the patient or family) when to discontinue hydration and feedings.

I don't even want to be in healthcare anymore. It's gotten so bad that administrators are willing to let go any nurse that gets a complaint from a patient or family member. They don't even have to be valid complaints.

Healthcare providers are the last people in the U.S. that you can legally abuse, torment, even assault and batter and get completely away with it.

It used to be that small-minded people who felt they had no control over their lives would go into a restaurant and send their steak back 6 times just to let the cook and waitress know who was "boss". Now they can go to hospital and do the same thing with nurses and doctors.

Try walking on eggshells all day, every day. I'm one of the few nurses I know that doesn't drink or do drugs or take anti-depressants. There will be a breaking point with healthcare in the U.S. and many will suffer.

The elderly, babies with congenital heart defects, burn victims, trauma victims, complicated births, dialysis...all the "expensive" stuff. I'm trying to get out before the waves of biological attacks come crashing through our Emergency Room doors.

People had better get used to this alas......

1) Hospitals are shutting down because they are not profitable or non profit ones cannot cover thier expences.

2) People use the emergency room for routine stuff because they do not have heath care? Or worse dont want to wait for an appointment. Thus in a major urban center you may have 10 out of 15 or in this case 14 out of 14 centers on divert.

3) Yes we need more MD and nurse but they are hard to come by.

Why? training is expensive to run for many schools thus many have stopped nursing programs due to budget cuts.

You have to work off shifts, holidays and weekends. etc etc for an often ungreatfull public who will turn and sue you at the drop of a hat.

4) Legal reform. We now spend as much time filling out paperwork as we do caring for our patients (Im not kidding) as the hospital want its ducks in order (As do we) in case they get sued.

Its bad and its going to get worse as people lose jobs AND lose thier health care IMHO