ER at The Villages Hospital
 

A few weeks ago, I submitted a Letter to the Editor, Daily Sun, but I have given up hope that it will ever be printed, so I'll share it here...

How is it that in The Villages, where everything is so wonderful, the ER service at its hospital, The Villages Regional Hospital, is so poor? Recently, my daughter was quite ill and waited four hours until the stress of sitting in the waiting room became worse than the stress of being sick at home. We left without having been seen. So did a man and woman sitting across from us. They were in their 80s and had been waiting six hours. And this was when the seasonal residents were gone! Since then, in telling our story, I have come across Villagers who said they spent eight hours or longer in the waiting room. This is appalling. If a business operated like that, it would have no customers. But The Villages Hospital has no competitors, so it does not have to care how long the ill and injured have to wait. With large parcels of land being purchased by The Villages, and the subsequent increase in population, the ability to obtain emergency care in a timely manner should be a huge concern for residents. This is about providing more than just amenities and shopping. This is about meeting life’s emergency needs.

I have heard stories like this too. If you have an arrow sticking out of your belly you will get immediate assistance, but those with lesser injuries have to wait. I have heard that if you go in by ambulance you go to the head of the line but they charge quite a lot per pick-up. Welcome to Rural/Metro of Sumter County - 911 Emergency Medical Transportation, Patient Care, Certified Paramedics - Rural/Metro South

The Villages built the building and leased it to a hospital business. You just can't open hospitals like you do restaurants. They must be permitted.

We are in the middle of a rapidly growing area and we have a population that is fraught with health issues. It would be wonderful if we had a large teaching hospital that specialized in geriatric issues. But like all things that cost money, it has to be funded and supported by greenbacks and has to have a medical community of some standing and merit willing to back it.

I give credit to the Morse family who has tried to fix this deficit by attempting to provide a health organization but it was quickly abandoned by both Moffit and USF.

Health care and insurance are not combatible and the costs, although sometimes warranted are often a football for a not quite as altruistic business as we once thought health care to be.

I am a strong supporter of capitalism. Socialized medicine provides care for all, but not the kind of care that we are used to here in the U.S. It isn't pie in the sky....and talk about waiting..........people diagnosed with breast cancer in Holland and Austria and England often have to wait months for surgery. It is for all, but it isn't as good as we have it here.

Just don't blame the developers. They tried. They failed to fix health care because health care is hard to fix. Scares me. They are good at just about everything.

I know this isn't the answer but go to the new ER on 441 just before Marion Market on the right hand side as your going North. Have heard nothing bad about that one. Leesburg & TV are connected and as others have said if you don't have arrows sticking out your going to wait period.

As one said "I give credit to the More family? even knowing they get a cut of it all. I personally have gone to Ocala in a life or death emergency, willing to take that risk as time mattered, I am alive today.

They rent to the business. They don't get a percentage.
That happens in certain retail businesses if they meet a very high plateau.

If you want to know how common waiting in an E.R. is across the whole continent. Just google "wait in the E.R.

Here, look.

had to wait hours in the e.r. - Bing

It seems to me that this wasn't a real emergency requiring a trip to the Hospital ER if someone could just decide to go home because it was taking too long. Maybe a better choice would have been to go to Urgent Care.
I'm thankful we have a hospital here. I have been in the ER a few times and have had several stays in the hospital. Wonderful care.

An ambulance has had to pick up my Dad a few times because of bad falls. Once with a rather heavily bleeding head wound. He got in right away that time. They took good care of him. The other time he had to wait quite a while. They triage the patients coming in. They do need more nurses IMHO. My nursing friend also used to work there and she seemed to agree that they are understaffed.

We usually go to Urgent Care unless they are not open.

Plain and simple. The coverage and response time at The villages Hospital emergency room stinks. People go there because it's convenient. Then they wait, and wait, and wait. If you have an option, get someone to tanke you to Shands. A UF teaching hospital. After 8 hrs. In the emergency room and finally being transported via ambulance to Shands I can say first hand, I won't go back to The Village Hospital for anything. This is not a Morse issue, it could be a life and death issue. They built a good city but the medical piece of it got lost in the shuffle. Agreed privatization takes over and so do economies of scale. And above all good old fashioned profit. The king of privatization

Very true on both counts.

The place to send your letter:
Contact us | The Villages Regional Hospital | The Villages, Florida

The Villages hospital ER relies on triage to see patients. A suspected heart attack will be seen before a broken wrist. The broken wrist does hurt but is not life threatening.

The OP did not say what illness her daughter had but is it something that suddenly appeared after Urgent Care hours or her own physician office hours? Was an EMERGENCY room required? Did she take her daughter to another ER or go home and to the family physician in the morning or what? What was the final outcome?

In order to know if the ER was faulty in letting her sit, more info is needed.

Understaffed
 

"She seemed to agree that they are understaffed". That seems to be the biggest problem with the ER and health care in general in The Villages. I believe it can be fixed by recruiting and marketing nationwide for these needed medical nurses and doctors. JUST DO iT!

While an excellent suggestion, it must be recognized that it will cost them more money.

From what I've seen, the powers-that-be...seem to be allergic to that. :shrug:

Skip is right, someone made a post last month about how quickly they received medical attention. They had gall stones or something similar and was in an operating room in 30 minutes. It has a full setup just like a hospital. It's in the entrance to the Del Webb Community and looks like this.

http://ocalahealthsystem.com/util/im...field-er-3.jpg