Uninsured Overwheleming Emergency Rooms
A lot of people are fraying from uttering the word recession in the open these days, everything from layoffs and lost jobs to decrease spending on unnecessary, and necessary items this economic downturn has caused a lot of unhappy Christmas shoppers. This article is about the overcrowding of hospital emergency rooms with uninsured patients. Cutting back on sweaters, scarves, travel, and big screen TV’s, people are feeling the pinch, but when you have to cut back on the one thing that so many people take for granted (health care) there stands to be a problem. “I am definitely seeing patients coming in presenting worse in their illness because they are further along,” said Dr. Katherine A. Bakes, the director of the program’s emergency services for children. Although this has been an increasing pattern with the rise in health care costs, how will this same situation play out in the wake of a recession? According to Reed Abelson writer for the NY Times, emergency rooms will feel the hit the hardest. Emergency rooms which once consisted of over populated, extreme case measures such as car accidents, and stabbings, are now being transformed into your modern day family general practitioner. The sole reason for this transformation is simple; those without health insurance know legally that they cannot be denied access to health care treatment when in the emergency room, and whose too blame them, if you need medical treatment, you need medical treatment.
The hidden question in all of this is what does this mean to the quality of care received for those within the emergency room? Increase case loads, increased patient nurse ratios, less time for pertinent patient teaching, higher occurrence of misdiagnosis because of rushed fed ex delivery of care leading to a revolving door pattern not conducive for optimal health for patients seeking treatment. Not to mention that a doctor’s major concern has got to be the long waits by patients requiring a hospital bed. The doctors group, surveying its members last year, learned of at least 200 deaths related to the practice of “boarding” in which patients on stretchers line the corridors until they can be moved into a bed, this in some experts opinions including my own will lead to a destructive health care crisis if left unresolved.
There is no question in my mind that because the health care system is not closely regulated we are in the trouble we are in today, universal health care coverage will only expand this problem further due to over utilization of medical attention once it is acquired. “We have no capacity now,” states Dr. Angela F. Gardner, the president-elect of the American College of Emergency Physicians, which represents 27,000 emergency doctors. “There’s no way we have room for any more people to come to the table.” In my opinion more government funding will be needed in order for already over populated, and over burdened emergency rooms to extend, and employ more health care providers giving hospitals a higher capability to house and treat patients more effectively.“What they don’t understand,” Bakes said, “is that the system is fundamentally flawed and will fail.”
Let’s do more than just hope she is incorrect!
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/business/09emergency.html?_r=1&ref=health
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