Big Black Eye for TV
 

My wife and I are six months into our life in TV and everything is better than what we were told or seen, with one exception. For a community so full of life, and affluence, I have never had a worst experience with an ER than I have here.

Last August, while purchasing our property, I needed to go to the ER for a pulmonary embolism concern and waited nine hours in the ER to get an ultrasound and diagnosis. We were seen by a nurse practitioner in a conference room, and witnessed people laying on gurneys in the hallway.

Fast forward to Thursday night, and our visiting daughter and her husband were concerned that their 22 month old daughter might have bronchitis or pneumonia and wanted a chest x-ray taken. We took her to TV Regional Hospital and were greeted with a jam-packed waiting room of suffering people. The check in nurse thought it would be an 11 hour wait. I don't know about you, but getting a toddler to handle a half hour doctor's appointment is pretty challenging. The thought of a tired, sick 22 month old enduring eleven hours in a room of misery was not even an option. So we went home and put her to bed. The next morning the 101 degree fever broke and we thought we were on our way to recovery. However, Friday evening came and our granddaughter just wasn't her usual self and was quite congested, so I went to the ER to scout the waiting time. Not as crowded as Thursday night, but still a five hour wait. We decided to put her to bed and try again in the morning. Finally, Saturday morning at 7:00 a.m. we took her in and had a more reasonable hour and a half wait and came home with our anti-biotics.

To see that ER waiting room at night is almost criminal. In talking with others, the recommendation is to get an ambulance to take you to the ER because then you get right into triage. That is a sad testimony to what is suppose to be a premier community.

With a rising and aging population, you would think that our community leaders would have more foresight to serve its elderly population's critical care needs. Shame on all of those leaders who have failed to serve our community in this critical area of support. Having experienced this failure on two separate occasions, at two different times of the year, tells me that this is not a one-time, peak event problem. Our ER needs to expand 300-400% to handle the needs that I witnessed on those three occasions.

For those contemplating a move to a new community, one should not only look at the best that the community provides, they should look at its problematic areas, too. From my perspective, visit the ER some night before signing on the dotted line, in case you might need some critical care in the future.

Underlying cause of the over crowding in ER is folks that should not be there. I hate to say this, but your child should have gone to Urgent Care, not ER. ER is for life threating issues. Glad she got some meds, but Urgent Care would have been able to do the same thing.

ER
 

I wonder just how many people were TRUE emergencies? Did you
try any of the walk-in clinics? How about the other area hospitals,
did you try them? I guess a lot of people in the area don't have
family doctors. If you had a real emergency, you should have
called 911, and let the experts handle it.:sigh:

Urgent care closes at 8:00 p.m. and our daughter's health plan has no coverage other than ER in remote State, like Florida. She was instructed by her insurance company's on-call nurse to go to the ER. Not everyone has golden, public sector health plans.

Big Black Eye for TV
 

Daughter does not have golden, public sector health care benefit. Her insurance company's on-call nurse instructed her to take her daughter to ER because there are no out-of-network providers in Florida under her coverage, except for ER. In addition, Urgent Care and most clinics close prior to 8:00 p.m.

Urgent Care and walk-in clinics close prior to 8:00 p.m. Besides The Villages Regional Hospital Urgent Care does not provide chest x-rays, they referred us to the ER for that kind of treatment. In either case, daughter's health plan does not cover out of network providers in remote States, like FL. Their call-in nurse line advised her to go to ER for care and coverage.

Finally, would you call 911 for a chest x-ray and an antibiotic? How would a 22 month respond to an ambulance ride to the ER for a chest x-ray?

That is a problem in itself.

I think the real concern is over the fact that there are not walk in clinics open twenty four hours a day. So the hospital is the only choice. I have used the same walk in clinic during regular business hours many times in the past three years and have been satisfied with it. I was in the waiting room when a couple brought in a young child and were turned away because they were told that this walk in clinic does not handle pediatrics. Very scary to parents who came in for medical assistance.

Lets face facts, it seems that many of us are from places with smaller populations yet more hospitals in a smaller radius. Hospitals from where I used to live had a twenty minute to be seen triage policy. I have heard first hand from my neighbors of the long hours of waiting in The Villages Hospital. Hopefully the new addition will alleviate this.
As another poster said....we are an aging community and in need of a well run, efficient ER.
Not only is The Villages population increasing but so are the outlying communities as well.

It seems that most health-care emergencies occur at night. Why couldn't there be at least one urgent care center that could stay open past 8:00 p.m. and take the load off the ER?

Someone should have advised you to take the child to Leesburg Hospital ER. They have pediatric facilities; TV hospital does not. I know because my little grandson fell ill and TV Hospital sent him to Leesburg by ambulance.

I agree that there should be an urgent care open 24 hours. One probably wouldn't be enough, though, to handle everything in TV.

I'm thinking the advice the insurance nurse gave to these parents was based purely on finances and not where the toddler needed to be--which seems to be at an urgent care, not in the ER. They could have given her a referral to an x-ray lab. I had this same experience myself.

It's part of the problem of ER overcrowding.

Big black eye
 

J hope your granddaughter is feeling better. At night that was your only choice because urgent care is not open. I agree that there should be 24 hr. urgent care open in the villages. 11hrs. or more in the waiting room is beyond horrible. I hope I never need to go there.

My visiting friend took her eight month old baby to Leesburg Hospital where they have a pediatric emergency department.She couldn't praise it enough.An eleven hour wait is totally unacceptable.

You're absolutely right, but one is better than none and you have to start somewhere.

You are so right.

Sad situation
 

First off, I'm so sorry you and your family had to endure such incompetence here in TV. I have heard horror stories from the ER here. I am worried for mine and my husbands health and life living here. I have already told him that if I need care please bring me to Leesburg or Ocala. The fact that the emergency care is so substandard ( in my opinion) is very scary. And, the fact that there is no one to care for a sick child is just as bad. When a child is ill, they need care quickly, if just for the fact that they are children. To add fuel to the fire, health insurances will not pay for Out of Network care. I think we should spread the word that if Urgent Care is open then we should go there if it is not an emergency. If it is after hours then we should go to another hospital where it's not such a cluster. With everything that TV has to offer, they should be ashamed of the so called Medical Care, specifically the Hospital, they provide. I would think that we the residence should voice loud and clear the need of better Emergency and hospital care here in The Villages. Our life could depend on it.

What is really the problem is the hospital is not built or staffed to handle all of the unexpected snowbirds or visitors that are here. Every winter this happens. It happens anywhere the population of older people increase dramatically. You notice the dinning establishements are jammed packed. I live here full time and after all the snowbirds go home life becomes normal. Normal mind you as the wait times at hospitals and restaurants are greatly reduced. I also lived in the Phoenix Metro area for 30 years and worked 10 of them as a paramedic. Lots of good quality hospitals. But the problems were the same, extremely long wait times and patients in the hallways. An example was the town of Apache Junction. Normal population was about 25,000. With all the snowbirds showing up there the population increased to around 60,000 every winter. That increase was all older people with more medical issues. We increased the number of medic units but still ran calls back to back for 24 hrs. This was from December to April every year. That was just one small town in the Phx metro area. It was like that in all the towns and cities there. Your small towns or large cities up north don't have to deal with this kind of problem with enough beds or staff or even square footage. The hospitals here can't run in the summer time with too much staff and too much equipment and supplies and huge empty buildings. You think your medical bills are high now? If this was to happen you might as well forget about health care here period.

No one anticipated the enormous success the Morse Family brought to Central Florida. The infrastructure and hospitals will eventually catch up but in the meantime, opening of more 24 hour Urgent Cares could alleviate the problem. I would stress the fact that in any serious emergency, it is not a good idea to search around for the places covered by your insurance plans...not when lives are at stake. And do not be embarrassed to call 911, that's what they are there for. We saw a tennis acquaintance die because he told his wife to drive him to the hospital instead of calling 911 and he died just outside the gates..,at age 52. It also happened to me, collapsing on the court and a friend had the presence of mind to call 911 to which I am thankful. He did not bother to check my insurance either, thank God!

At one time, there was a plan to open another hospital within the Brownwood area. Many conversations on TOTV since '08 about it. We could use that hospital now.. What ever happened to that concept. Did the Moffitt hospital take its place???

Here's a few links that give some background -

https://www.talkofthevillages.com/fo...-square-28158/

https://www.talkofthevillages.com/fo...ospital-40256/

[QUOTE=shawano1;837923]Urgent Care and walk-in clinics close prior to 8:00 p.m. Besides The Villages Regional Hospital Urgent Care does not provide chest x-rays, they referred us to the ER for that kind of treatment. In either case, daughter's health plan does not cover out of network providers in remote States, like FL. Their call-in nurse line advised her to go to ER for care and coverage.


If the insurance companies changed their policies and covered more non emergency care, that would help some of the crowding in the ED. Sorry this is soooo long, but health care in the Villages is one of my "soapbox" topics. I am on my second primary care doctor, and am still not happy with the care. If anyone has a wonderful doctor with office staff that follows through with things when necessary, I would love to hear about them.

Crowded ER's are a problem all over the country, not just in The Villages.

I've had 3 experiences at the TV ER and all 3 were satisfactory, HOWEVER, all 3 were during normal times and not snowbird season. I was also an inpatient in both TV and Leesburg and Leesburg is far superior to TV. The employees at Leesburg seemed more professional and caring about my welfare than at TV. It seemed maybe there was a morale problem going on at TV! Just my opinion!

$50M Hospital expansion will double size of emergency room - The Villages Daily Sun: Villages

I seem to recall the state if Florida rejected an application from the developer to build a second hospital, which led to the expansion.

Dr Angel Tafur is a very good doctor with friendly, efficient staff. If you go to the hospital, he manages your care himself and doesn't sign you over to someone else. Good reputation, kind man, roots in the community.

Thank you all for your responses. Let me tell you more of the story based on your responses.

On the first night, after taking her to TV ER and faced with an 11 hour wait, we did drive to Leesburg, because one of TV nurses said that Leesburg had pediatric care. When we got to Leesburg, we were faced with the same thing. The check in nurse said that they, too had an eleven hour waiting list. So we returned home, and gave our infant granddaughter acetaminaphin and put her to bed.

The next morning, I went to the TV Regional Hospital's Urgent Care across the street, and it wasn't open until 7 or 8 a.m. When I talked to one of the nurses about my sick granddaughter, they said that the ER is the place to go to receive a chest x-ray. That they would not have been able to help her. I then called around to various clinics and found one on HWY 466 and Morse that said they would be able to perform a chest x-ray on a toddler. Going back to our story, by then our granddaughter's fever had broken, so we went into a wait and lets see how she responds mode. Again, because of insurance coverage issues that only allowed for ER coverage pointed us to the ER or out of pocket expenses. By bedtime, our granddaughter was still very congested, but no fever. Our daughter wanted to take her into the ER for a chest x-ray, so I scouted TV ER for waiting time, and again it was five hours on the second night. We thought it would be better to wait until morning instead of having this toddler endure five hours of waiting in an ER waiting room. If no improvement overnight then we were going to take her to TV ER or to the walk-in clinic mentioned above. It ended up being TV ER on Saturday morning, and after an hour and a half wait, she received treatment in an open hallway, with no chest x-ray. We did receive an anti-biotic prescription for an ear infection. Hopefully, it will address the chest congestion, too.

In conclusion, a 24-hour Urgent Care would not have helped. They didn't do x-rays. Leesburg, was just as crowded as TV. Seasonality, has minimal blame. Going back to my original post, I needed ER care last August. I went to Urgent Care across the street, and once they heard pulmonary embolism, they whisked me to TV ER. There I waited nine hours for treatment, which ended up being an ultrasound and some blood work. When I asked personnel at TV ER why such poor service, they said that more snowbirds are becoming full-time residents that the ER can't handle summertime demand anymore either. As for people going to the ER that didn't need to be there and cause this problem, all I ask for those off-the-cuff flippant responses, is just go to TV ER some night. Pick any night, at any time of the year, and see the misery in all of the faces, and you will understand my outrage toward TV planners of how poorly they planned for this critical need. They do a great job in creating all kinds of availability for new housing, but missed terribly in this area. I pray that none of you ever has to go through what we and all of the others in that ER waiting room has gone through.

The article is 10 months old....has construction begun? Addition and expanded emergency room supposed to be complete by January 2015....and updates?
:cus:

What TV needs is what the Cleveland Clinic has done in Twinsburg Ohio. They built a satellite clinic about 30 miles from their main campus. It is very huge with specialists for appointments, ect. The great thing about it is that they have included emergency room facilities an even a heliport if a patient needs to be transferred immediately. I have used the TV emergency facility and have the same horror story everyone else seems to have. Unfortunately, this past year I've had to use the Cleveland Clinic emergency room five times.....never waited more than 10 minutes to start getting treated....great care and always the correct diagnosis. The Cleveland Clinic is a world renown operation. They already have a hospital somewhere in Florida but, I'm unsure where it is. Maybe the Morse family needs to contact the Cleveland Clinic...bonds could be sold and there is plenty of land around Brownwood. It only common sense!
:spoken:

In all that has been said above, please do not blame the nurses and doctors. You can't imagine how difficult their jobs are trying to care for everyone with excellence, which is ALWAYS the goal. The push is always on to process patients through faster, faster, faster. It is exhausting and stressful.

It is a mess, from the sick miserable patients, to the stressed out staff, right up to the scrambling administration who have so many regulations and financial constraints to deal with. The hospital here is just a microcosm of the trouble the healthcare system is in nationally. And strap on the seatbelts, as I fear we haven't seen anything yet.

It is true that ER's all over the country re experiencing upswings. However it is also true that in central Florida the majority population is over 65 meaning that the need for health is far greater.

The ACA will help Emergency Rooms by putting patients in a DR's office and out of the Emergency Room.

Ground was broken on the expansion project in November. It will double the size of the emergency room and change and better the facilities with additional rooms where patients can even stay overnight if necessary while tests are done to see if they should be admitted. You can build beautiful hospitals but excellent doctors have to want to move here.


The Cleveland Clinic is the number one heart facility in the U.S. and has much research money and doctors "dying" to work there because of the brilliance of it's staff. That is one of the factors that attract excellent physicians, being with excellent physicians and in the best teaching hospitals.

Shaun01 - You claim that a 24 hour Urgent Care facility would not help you. I believe that if there had been one, there might have been fewer people at the ER and the wait would have been shorter for your grand-daughter. That would help. However, even if there were such a facility, there is no way to tell how many people would use it.

I am very glad you decided to post this on TOTV.
 

Thanks for posting this story on TOTV. I had a little medical problem (slight pain near the pubic triangle above the male package) a few weeks back and fortunately went to the closest Urgent Care @ February 11, 2014 which got me a doctor within 10 minutes or so. I had very high blood pressure and constipation. It turned out I just had too much blockage but I had been reading all kinds of things on the Internet trying to figure out what it might be and put myself in a very agitated state. I have no medical coverage of any kind at the moment so we had to pay out-of-pocket. The thorough physician did take a group of MRIs as I had suspected that it might be my prostate. Thankfully, it was not as far as I know. I turned 55 on 2-24. Born on 2-24-1959.

We had to call 911 a few months back as my father fell about 9:30 P.M. and put a couple of gashes which needed 16 stitches near his hairline. He was bleeding profusely from the head so he did get into a doctor quite quickly. Of course, this was not during snowbird season. He went to the Villages Regional Hospital Emergency via ambulance with my mother while I spent about a half hour mopping up the bathroom with towels and bleach. I picked him up that night at about 2:30 A.M and brought him home.

I have heard stories of long waiting times at the Villages' area hospitals, of course.

So glad that your granddaughter is OK. Not sure of what kind of solution is needed.

I am still monitoring my own health after taking two weeks of blood pressure checks (@ Feb 11-Feb 25, 2014) and taking the pills the doctor prescribed. Trying to eat fruit and yogurt for the constipation. I also take regular blood sugar tests with a kit I bought at CVS.

I am looking into doing something about my own lack of medical insurance but this chronic state has never stopped me from seeking medical care. I am very lucky to have family that care for me. Great that you were there for your granddaughter.

So, as you said, there was never a chest x-ray done...:shrug:

I agree there should be 24 hour Urgent Care facilities here, and seeing that you didn't have a chest x-ray done, Urgent Care WOULD have helped and much sooner. Even going Friday morning to Urgent Care would have been a good choice. Probably would have made you time with your visiting family more enjoyable. What I don't understand is the strong desire to have that chest x-ray.

It's easy for everyone to look back and see a better way to have done things. Hindsight is always 20/20.

Have look at ACA
This is a very real possibility for you, forget about pre-existing conditions...you can get medical insurance here. I believe it is required by March 31 anyway. After much time without medical insurance, my wife and I now have it.

I understand/remember that feeling of panic when a baby is ill. Having said that, I too wondered about the fact that it was the baby's mother who decided the child should have an x-ray, not a doctor. If there had been an open urgent care, you might have paid $100 out of pocket but saved your child unnecessary exposure to x-ray.

One of the hospitals where we lived in MI is including in their expansion an on-site urgent care that will be open 24 hours. As patients come into the ER who are not in an emergency situation, they are sent over to the urgent care section.

I am part of the way through applying for the ACA. It keeps telling me I am not eligible for Florida Medicaid because I have not filed any Federal Tax forms. I have not made enough money since 1991 to need to file these. So, I have to file an appeal and I am quite worked up about just what I should put in the appeal. That is, I believe, part of why I had the constipation and high blood pressure in the first place. I have been working on-and-off on the appeal for six weeks or so. It is kind of tricky about what to put in it and what to leave out.

I am very glad about the pre-existing medical conditions aspect of the ACA coverage.

The ACA insurance rates quoted for Florida are way too high for me or my family to afford.

Them folks up in Tallahasee must share some of the blame. Not approving application for more hospitals makes the problem that much worse.
One poster blamed the Villages planners............if they requested and were denied, how are they to blame?

The crane is in place.

But this won't solve the problem of people going to the ER when they don't belong there. We need 24-hour urgent care.