10News Examines The State Of Emergency Rooms

Overcrowded, overwhelmed, and under-funded is the diagnosis for hospital emergency rooms across the country.

This is according to a recent report following a two-year probe by the Institute of Medicine.

Among the startling revelations: One ambulance every minute is diverted and sent to another hospital.

The co-author of the report is the chief medical officer of San Diego’s Scripps Health.

"Our study really shows we verge on collapse of the system," said Dr. A. Brent Eastman told 10News.

According to the report, a big part of the problem is too many uninsured people are showing up at hospital emergency rooms. That's because it's the only place that guarantees medical care.

(What do you know, do you think that these uninsured patients might be some of the 20 million plus illegal aliensdoing the jobs us Americans are too lazy to do? But it can't be, La Raza tells us how much they contribute to society, and how they never use ER's for medical care.)

In 2003, there were 114 million visits nationwide to hospital emergency rooms -- compared to 90 million visits a decade before.

(Gee, the same exact period that the U.S has been invaded by masses of illegal aliens, what a coincidence.)

The report cited that if hospitals were struggling with the day-to-day jobs, they were sorely unprepared for a large-scale emergency.

It was also noted that many emergency rooms were not funded to handle large-scale disasters.

Doctors said the care crisis is forcing them to ask some very tough questions.

"When someone is a trauma victim or has a heart attack or stroke, do you have the resources to take care of those patients?" said Dr. Dan Wiener at St. Luke’s Hospital.

With this grim news come some recommendations from the Institute of Medicine -- one suggestion being that Congress should establish a pool of $50 million to reimburse hospitals for unpaid bills.

(Sure, why not shift the bill to the our nation's taxpayers, we sure couldn't possibly send the bill to places like Mexico, after all doctors can't even ask if their patients are here legaly or not.)

They also recommended national disaster preparedness funds be designated for local hospitals.

And typical of San Diego news reporting, absolutely no mention of the costs incurred due to treating illegal aliens. All they say is some of this situation is due to treating UNINSURED patients. Gee, I wonder who they might be referring to?