• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

The Valley Citizen

Pursuing truth toward justice

The Valley Citizen

Pursuing truth toward justice
  • Arts
  • Education
  • Environment
  • History
  • Nature
  • Politics
  • Wit
  • About

Valley Emergency Room Care Resembles Third World, by Bruce Frohman

February 14, 2013 By Eric Caine Leave a Comment

Emergency Room“If this is a medical emergency, dial 911.”

Through the use of this one sentence, the medical profession has turned the concept of the hospital emergency room into an oxymoron.

If you’ve been lucky enough to avoid San Joaquin Valley emergency rooms, then you’ve missed an absolutely miserable experience. Visit any emergency room, especially on weekends and evenings, and you’ll wait a far longer time than with a routine visit to the doctor or a clinic.

The term “emergency” implies that immediate treatment is necessary. However, except in the most extreme cases, immediate treatment is impossible to obtain in the emergency room. Hospitals often have to triage, meaning that people who enter an emergency room are served based on a priority system established by each hospital.

Over the years, stories of patients waiting 8 hours or longer have become common. The frustrating thing for patients is that the staff won’t tell them what kind of wait to expect because the triage system makes predictions unreliable. Instead of first-in first-out treatment, the triage system “bumps” lesser emergencies when more serious emergencies arrive.

Under pressure to be profitable, hospitals have cut emergency room staff to bare minimums. If a spike in visits occurs, they can’t serve the customers. At a recent visit to a local hospital emergency room, this writer noticed that nearly every chair in the waiting room was filled and that one patient was called every 10 to 15 minutes. Given the number of people waiting, it would have taken a minimum of 8 hours for everyone to be seen even if no one else entered the emergency room.

No Patient Is Refused Care

All hospital emergency rooms emphatically state that they will not turn away any patient. As a result, all are clogged with a wide variety of patients with an assortment of problems. The case can be made that a large percentage should wait until the next morning, when they could be seen by a physician or physician’s assistant in a clinic or office. Medi-Cal patients, who don’t have to make payment out of pocket, are often blamed for filling emergency rooms when their medical issues could be handled on a non-emergency basis.

The real problem is the screening of patients. Emergency staff are afraid to send people home for fear that they’ll suffer severe consequences from not being seen. The concern about liability is greater than whether the treatment priority is appropriate or whether the patient suffers greater harm waiting long uncomfortable hours in an emergency room lobby filled with people who may carry infectious disease.

Making someone wait 8 hours for treatment is comparable to denying treatment. A patient arriving at midnight who waits 8 hours to be seen might as well have been sent home to see his doctor the next day.

Despite these degraded emergency room services, hospital administrators have done nothing to solve the problem. Doctors’ Medical Center of Manteca offers patients the option to sign into the emergency room via the Internet. But on any given night, the emergency room may be full of patients and those who don’t check in on-line either have to wait even longer to be seen or those who check in on-line aren’t seen right away as was promised.

The Profit Motive In Health Care

Hospital administrators are most concerned about the bottom line. If they can’t turn a profit, they can’t stay in business. Consequently, they keep emergency room staff numbers at a minimum and allow the service to degrade. If the patient has a successful outcome, great. If not, tough luck for the patient. What’s a little misery and suffering when the community would be worse off if there were no hospitals at all?

Oak Valley Hospital in Oakdale is planning to close its maternity ward because it’s not profitable. Community service might not be a concern for that hospital’s administrators. Oakdale citizens will either need to find a midwife or drive 15-20 miles into Modesto to deliver.

The Valley is becoming like a third world country in health care. One hears more and more frequently how some Mexican-Americans now go to Mexico for health care because they feel that the quality and cost of care is better there.

Blame The Government

Some politicians say the government is at fault for the degraded medical service. They say that because the government is trying to make medical treatment affordable for all citizens, it has created a shortage in resources and has driven up the cost of treatment.

Japan’s government-run medical system does not have the problems the for-profit system has in the United States. Clinics in Japan are open all the time for acute problems, the wait times are short, enough nurses and doctors are always on duty, and the costs are affordable.

Problems in the Valley health care aren’t due to offering affordable service. They’re due to insufficient staffing and abuse of emergency status. The problems can be solved, but they won’t be as long as people continue to put up with them.

Filed Under: Featured, History Tagged With: health care San Joaquin Valley, Valley emergency care

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Note: Some comments may be held for moderation.

Primary Sidebar

Off The Wire

Gimme Shelter: Mayor Karen Bass on homelessness and the California housing crisis
Gimme Shelter: Mayor Karen Bass on homelessness and the California housing crisis
Liam Dillon and Ben Oreskes of the L.A. Times interview Mayor Karen Bass about homelessness and housing problems in California.
calmatters.org
Judge Luttig Has a Warning for America
Judge Luttig Has a Warning for America
Our democracy is “under vicious, unsustainable, and unendurable attack” from within…
morningshots.thebulwark.com
Rupert Murdoch has fuelled polarisation of society, Barack Obama says
Rupert Murdoch has fuelled polarisation of society, Barack Obama says
Former US president tells Sydney audience that media coverage has helped exacerbate divisions and that we no longer have a “shared story”
www.theguardian.com
California faces catastrophic flood dangers ? and a need to invest billions in protection
California faces catastrophic flood dangers and a need to invest billions in protection
A new state plan for the Central Valley calls for spending as much as $30 billion over 30 years to prepare for the dangers.
www.latimes.com
Oakland will get millions for the ?inhumane? crisis at one huge homeless encampment. Officials say it?s not enough
Oakland will get millions for the “inhumane” crisis at one huge homeless encampment. Officials say it’s not enough
Gavin Newsom’s administration has awarded Oakland a $4.7 million grant to come up with…
www.sfchronicle.com
Alaska?s Fisheries Are Collapsing. This Congresswoman Is Taking on the Industry She Says Is to Blame.
Alaska’s Fisheries Are Collapsing. This Congresswoman Is Taking on the Industry She Says Is to Blame.
Mary Peltola won her election by campaigning on a platform to save the state’s prized fisheries. A powerful fishing lobby is standing in her way.
www.politico.com
Jimmy Carter's final foe: A parasitic worm that preyed on millions in Africa and Asia
Jimmy Carter’s final foe: A parasitic worm that preyed on millions in Africa and Asia
One of former President Carter’s biggest hopes is wiping out an infectious parasitic disease that’s plagued humans for millennia. How close is he?
www.latimes.com
Climate Extremes Threaten California?s Central Valley Songbirds - Eos
Climate Extremes Threaten California’s Central Valley Songbirds – Eos
A “nestbox highway” in California’s Central Valley is guiding songbirds to safe nesting sites and giving scientists a peek at fledgling success in a changing climate.
eos.org
Alaska Republican touts benefits of children being abused to death
Alaska Republican touts benefits of children being abused to death
Republican David Eastman suggested the death of child abuse victims could be a “cost savings” to wider society.
www.newsweek.com
Editorial: Newsom's drought order amid wet winter threatens iconic California species
Editorial: Newsom’s drought order amid wet winter threatens iconic California species
Gov. Gavin Newsom has effectively ended environmental regulations protecting California rivers and migratory fish by extending drought-year waivers.
www.latimes.com
Two-thirds of McPherson Square homeless remain on street, D.C. says
Two-thirds of McPherson Square homeless remain on street, D.C. says
As of Thursday, just two of the more than 70 residents of McPherson Square had been placed in permanent D.C. housing.
www.washingtonpost.com
More Building Won?t Make Housing Affordable
More Building Won’t Make Housing Affordable
America’s housing crisis has reached unfathomable proportions. But new construction isn’t enough to solve it.
newrepublic.com

Find us on Facebook

The Valley Citizen
PO Box 156
Downtown Bear Postal
1509 K Street
Modesto, CA 95354

Email us at:
thevalleycitizen@sbcglobal.net

Footer

The Valley Citizen
PO Box 156
Downtown Bear Postal
1509 K Street
Modesto, CA 95354

Email us at:
thevalleycitizen@sbcglobal.net

Subscribe for Free

* indicates required

Search

• Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2023 The Valley Citizen

Dedicated to the memory of John Michael Flint. Contact us at thevalleycitizen@sbcglobal.net

Editor and publisher: Eric Caine

Website customization and maintenance by Susan Henley Design