SJ HEALTH AWARENESS

By Tiff the Angry Nerd

I’m not gonna sugarcoat anything. The healthcare system is shot to shit. There’s so much wrong with it but, we need it. It’s shitty for the people who genuinely need it. It’s a game for those who abuse it. The people who abuse it fail to understand that they stand a great chance of being the reason someone is dead. This blog moving forward is going to share real situations(no real identities are given). –Tiff

Honestly, it’s good that you’re able to wait. Cuz if you get rushed back, you’re probably dying or walking up the path to knock on the door. The ER is filled with people who wait til issues get very bad to get seen and people who should see their PCP (primary care physician). Then there’s the people who are very sick and seriously injured. These are the people who are at risk. Aaaand… the people who put them at risk don’t seem to understand what the ER is for so I’m gonna share some examples of why the wait can be long.

• If someone goes to the ER for genital discharge, you’re gonna wait. That’s not an emergency, that’s something a primary care doctor, GYN, and urgent care should see. Especially if it’s been going on for more than a week…it’s not urgent at that point, it’s just nasty. They flood the emergency rooms.
• People come in for a stomachache and have a bag full of junk food and DoorDash in the waiting room. How sick can someone be shoving two double cheeseburgers in their mouth? Does that seem like an emergency to you? Nope.
• If someone comes in for a work note you earned an extra hour or 2 hour wait.
• Everyone has heard that if you say “chest pain” you get taken right back. That WAS true…but the exaggerations became overwhelming and the American Heart Association recommended this diagnostic test to focus on real cardiac emergencies. EKG in triage. Then it’s the lovely people who suddenly remember they forgot to say chest pain and they’re being seen for knee pain they’ve had for 5 months which just got worse. So that’s more wait time.
• People who follow up from the ER in the ER because they didn’t want to wait for an office visit. The ER is NOT a primary care. But people think it is smh. So that’s a wait.

Issues like that are part of the problem for the wait times. Imagine you go to the ER for stomach pain; you’re throwing up everything, you got the runs, and you have a fever. You’re sick and definitely need to get seen, you sign in, get triaged, and sit back down to wait. The person next to you is on the phone extra loud talking about his head hurts and the person on the other side of you is complaining about waiting to get seen for her work note. I don’t know about y’all but if I’m sick or hurt, I think the people in the ER should be sick or hurt too. Who wants to be around people that’s extra loud for no reason, talkin’ bout they’re ready to fight the staff, or going out getting seafood and wings when thinking about food will make a sick person throw up.

It usually takes a traumatic situation to happen for things to get through to people. I’m trying to decrease those traumatic events. I want people to learn and understand in a healthy way. So I’m gonna talk about it.