Originally Posted by shawano1
(Post 837904)
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.
I am a RN with 20+ years experience in the Emergency Department of a Level 1 Trauma Center. I totally agree -I have a lot of concerns about the health care in The Villages in general, and I have not been impressed with the care that several of my friends have received in the ED here.I hope that your grandchild is doing better and I also agree we should have 24/7 non-emergency care in an area of this size. One thing I have to disagree with is the comment about taking the child to the ED for an x-ray and antibiotics. With the interference of politicians and insurance companies, doctors and hospitals are frequently limited to the tests they can order on the first visit. Not all illnesses even bronchitis, require x-rays, and not all illnesses require antibiotics. I am NOT saying your grandchild did or did not, just speaking in general. It is much better, esp. for children if you do not expose them to unnecessary radiation or antibiotics. It is best to leave the course of treatment up to the doctor. It must have been very, very frustrating to have a sick child, and not be familiar with the places to go to make her feel better.
The thing that makes me very, very angry is your neighbor or whoever made the comment about calling 911 because you will get seen faster by the triage nurse. NO, NO, and NO!!!!!!! Several things are wrong with that. Not only are they abusing the system, but may wind up with a much more expensive visit. I can't speak about the ED here, but every patient who came in to our ED by life saving crew did immediately see a triage nurse, but if they did not feel you were an emergency, the crew's stretcher was lowered to the ground and the person was escorted to the waiting area to check in, and wait their turn like all the other patients. Plus, they might have tied up the life saving crew and several fire trucks and all their personnel when they were needed on a real emergency. The life saving squad in our area were not required to take the patient to the hospital if they were not an emergency, although they normally did. Also, and I love this one-- when the insurance company reviewed their claim, it is very probable that they would refuse to pay the fee for a NON-EMERGENCY trip. The patient may find themselves paying for a very, very expensive taxi ride.
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.
One thing that would help is to pay the emergency doctors and staff better, and attract more quality help. This area of the country has always been guilty of very low pay for nurses. I didn't work around here, but where I worked, it was not uncommon for servers in a lot of the restaurants to make more money in tips than I made in salary. Money is not why people become nurses, but they have bills to pay too.
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.
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