Quote:
Originally Posted by Diva Kay
I was sent straight from Lake Center Imaging to ER as I had a blood clot in my right leg - yes a life threatening blood clot.
Do you know they sat me in a wheelchair for 5 hours before ever seeing a doctor. The ER is for emergency situations and trust me a blood clot is an emergency.
Then the doctor admitted me - and guess what, I was sent somewhere in the dark ages of the hospital - a semi private room with a port-a-potty. And the woman in the other bed had bronchial pneumonia - very contagious!
So....if you are following this....I have a life threatening condition and my life is further threatened by bronchial pneumonia.
AND, where are these beautiful private rooms that millions of dollars were spent on?????
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Sorry, but I have to throw my 2 cents in on this one. I don't doubt you perceived the situation as you described, but to give an independent opinion:
1) A venous thrombus in the leg is not life threatening, it only has that potential if a piece breaks off, travels downstream, and causes a pulmonary embolus. I have seen people walk around for weeks with a DVT and only come in to be seen because their leg was swollen.
2) I personally see no excuse for a 5 hour wait. It sounds like the ER physician already knew the story---I assume you were at the imaging center for a venous Doppler which was positive, and that's why they sent you to the ER. If I were the ER doc, I would want to shoot you up with lovenox ASAP, it would take about 3 minutes to introduce myself, poke on your leg and start treatment. Imagine how everyone would feel if at hour 4 you developed respiratory distress and pleuritic chest pain consistent with an embolus and no one had even seen you.
On the other hand, last October I was sent to the ER at Strong Memorial for emergency neurosurgery, which was done after 22 hours in the ER
3) If you had uncomplicated DVT with no co-morbidities, you didn't even need to be admitted. Just start lovenox in the ER, give you a prescription for Xarelto, and have your physician check you in 3 days, possibly repeating the venous Doppler
4) Bedrest???? I think the last time that was ordered for a DVT was 1956
5) Bacterial pneumonia is not VERY contagious. Most of the bacteria that cause it are already present in your own respiratory tract---it is only when conditions are right that it can take over and cause pneumonia (chronic lung disease, malnutrition, immunocompromised, diabetes, etc.). If it were highly contagious, hospitals would be required to place all pneumonia patients in isolation
6) There is a lot of trashing TVRH on TOTV, not saying that was what you were doing. But my wife was admitted there in March. Yes , she had a 6 hour ER wait, and yes, her condition WAS life threatening. She was there 16 days then across the street in rehab for another 26 days. Was this the best hospital in the world---no. Was it the worst--certainly not, I've seen some of the worst. Having had experience with about 3 dozen hospitals up north, I would put it the 40th percentile---which really is not too bad for what it is. We should be thankful for what we have, and in case everyone hasn't realized it yet, healthcare in the US is about to take a nosedive