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Originally Posted by rubicon
Define emergency care. I certainly cannot with any degree of accuracy since I am not a medical professional. I listen to an incident once from a state trooper concerning an automobile accident involving two vehicles. The trooper told me he spoke in length to one of the drivers. the driver told the state trooper he was just fine and hadn't received as much as a bruise. This driver went home and within a few hours died from internal injuries.
Based on the concerns expressed by people perhaps the ER being a triage needs to have a triage within a triage so that the flu patients, etc are directed to urgent care leaving more time and resources devoted to fractures, etc.
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Flu is often life-threatening to an older person, or those with cancer and many other diseases that have them already immune-compromised or debilitated, while most fractures are not life threatening. Fractures are painful, yes, but they can be treated for that while waiting on the life-threatened patients.
Respiratory, cardiac and neurological problems possible from flu (and other things) are nothing to fool around with, especially among seniors.