Private health care eliminates waiting in every occasion

[Twiddle]

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/07/01/hospit ... index.html

NEW YORK (AP) -- City hospital officials said they were shocked by surveillance footage showing a woman falling from her chair, writhing on the floor and dying as workers failed to help for more than an hour.
Surveillance video shows a woman lying on the hospital floor for almost an hour before anyone helped her.

Surveillance video shows a woman lying on the hospital floor for almost an hour before anyone helped her.

Esmin Green, 49, had been waiting in the emergency room for nearly 24 hours when she toppled from her seat at 5:32 a.m. June 19, falling face-down on the floor.

She was dead by 6:35, when someone on the medical staff, flagged down by a person in the waiting room, finally approached, nudged Green with her foot and gently prodded her shoulder, as if to wake her.

The staffer left and returned with someone wearing a white lab coat who examined her and summoned help.

Until the staffer's appearance, Green's collapse barely caused a ripple. Other patients waiting a few feet away didn't react. Security guards and a member of the hospital's staff appeared to notice her prone body at least three times but made no visible attempt to see whether she needed help. Video Watch the surveillance video »

One guard didn't even leave his chair, rolling it around a corner to stare at the body and then rolling away a few moments later.

Green, who had been involuntarily committed the previous morning and had waited overnight for a bed, stopped moving about half an hour after she collapsed.

The New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, which runs the hospital, said six people have been fired as a result of the incident, including security personnel and members of the medical staff.
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Green's medical records raised the possibility that someone might have tried to cover up the circumstances of the death.

They contained notations indicating that she was up and about during the time in which the video shows her dying on the floor.

"We are all shocked and distressed by this situation," HHC's president, Alan Aviles, said in a statement. "We express our deep regrets to the patient's family and will ensure a thorough investigation to answer any questions that remain."

Details of the death were disclosed by the hospital June 20, but the case largely remained unnoticed until the video became public.

The psychiatric unit at Kings County Hospital had been a subject of complaints by advocates for the mentally ill.

A state agency, the New York State Mental Hygiene Legal Service, filed a lawsuit a year ago, calling the psychiatric center "a chamber of filth, decay, indifference and danger."

Patients, the suit said, "are subjected to overcrowded and squalid conditions often accompanied by physical abuse and unnecessary and punitive injections of mind-altering drugs."

"From the moment a person steps through the doors," it added, "she is stripped of her freedom and dignity and literally forced to fight for the essentials of life."

The suit was especially critical of the hospital's emergency ward, saying it is so poorly staffed that patients are often marooned there for days while they wait to be evaluated.
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Sometimes, the unit runs out of chairs, according to the lawsuit, forcing people to wait on foam mats or on the waiting room floor. The suit also claims that bathrooms are filthy and filled with flies, and that patients who complain too loudly are sometimes handcuffed, beaten or injected with psychotropic drugs.

The office of the city's medical examiner said it was still trying to determine why Green died. She had been brought to the hospital suffering from agitation and psychosis, city officials said.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

[neorichieb1971]

All the hospitals I went to the in the USA looked more like 5 star hotels, had water fountains out front and people waiting to take your baggage at the door (as well as your insurance information).

Private health care does not mean absolute guarantee that you will not wait. As far as I would run it, the most vulnerable person would be seen first. In most cases this scenario would have turned out the same even under a public funded scheme. The people that got fired were probably scape goats.

This should be labeled under "shit happens".

[Ex-Cyber]

As far as I would run it, the most vulnerable person would be seen first.

It's my understanding that most public systems are run this way, that being the primary source of complaints about waiting - i.e. they come from people who were able to live through the wait. Some people will die while waiting under such a system, but then some will die under a privatized system for lack of routine/preventive care.

[Damocles]

If this is the same story I saw a few months ago, the hospital was under review at the time for other acts of negligence. From what I gleaned at the time, it wasn't exactly an A-rate establishment.

[GaijinPunch]

All the hospitals I went to the in the USA looked more like 5 star hotels,

Social health care benefits the people that can't make it to anything other than the numerous shitty hospitals across the country.

[UnscathedFlyingObject]

I saw it on the news today. I can see why the guards didn't even want to touch the lady ('cause they'd get their asses sued,) but there's no excuse for them not to call medical staff ASAP. And nobody tell me there weren't any around.

[escadrille]

As far as I would run it, the most vulnerable person would be seen first.

It's my understanding that most public systems are run this way, that being the primary source of complaints about waiting - i.e. they come from people who were able to live through the wait. Some people will die while waiting under such a system, but then some will die under a privatized system for lack of routine/preventive care.

All hospitals work this way, and a triage nurse makes these determinations.

"Wait times" in socialized healthcare systems are usually for specialized equipment or high-cost treatments. MRIs, new cancer treatments, etc. This doesn't occur in privatized systems because fewer people have access to said equipment either because they cannot afford it or their insurance provider refuses to pay for it.

Privatized systems have the obvious advantage of having to provide services to fewer people.

[Ex-Cyber]

"Wait times" in socialized healthcare systems are usually for specialized equipment or high-cost treatments. MRIs, new cancer treatments, etc. This doesn't occur in privatized systems because fewer people have access to said equipment either because they cannot afford it or their insurance provider refuses to pay for it.

Privatized systems have the obvious advantage of having to provide services to fewer people.

This is an important point. Some opponents of universal health care systems cry "but there would be rationing", as though we're not doing it already...

[DEL]

^That's quite sick, but it doesn't surprise me. Like I mentioned before, my only experience of an American hospital is when I was brought in with a dislocated knee. They refused to treat me until my insurance papers were brought. So I writhed around in agony (and I mean agony) for 45mins while my friend took a cab to get my papers.
Once he arrived, the doctor suddenly appeared for the first time and popped my patella back in place. Simple. He should have done that in the first place .
The 3 minute ride in the ambulance and the 'treatment' cost $1,000 .

[JoshF]

Some people will die while waiting under such a system, but then some will die under a privatized system for lack of routine/preventive care.

In for-profit health care they die in their homes because they never get to see a waiting room.

[KBZ]

Am I naive in my astonishment whenever I read something like this? Does every country have its horror stories or is there a greater picture I'm missing out on?

[Ed Oscuro]

Private health care does not mean absolute guarantee that you will not wait.

Didn't understand the topic tagline is sarcasm

The people that got fired were probably scape goats.

Hasn't read much about this incident

This should be labeled under "shit happens".

When people go "oh look somebody is dying over there," I guess it does. ;D

Also, wtf @ 5 star hotels. I've been in some nice hotels, but I've never seen a hospital that would rate anything more than maybe 3 stars on the motel scale. Also, I've never been able to sleep in a hospital.