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.