Thread: WA: Overflowing ERs forcing patients to be diverted

Overflowing ERs forcing patients to be diverted

06:49 PM PDT on Saturday, March 22, 2008

By JESSE JONES / KING 5 News


Video: Overflowing ERs forcing patients to be diverted
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EVERETT, Wash. - It's a trend that's impacting people across the Northwest.

Full to overflowing emergency rooms are forcing patients to be diverted from one hospital to another.

The Washington State Hospital Association says it doesn't know how many patients are diverted in the region.

But it happened to a family from Everett.

On Tuesday, 12-year-old Alex Webster, a brittle diabetic, was hit with a viral infection.

His family rushed him to the hospital to avoid brain swelling, a problem for diabetics when they're sick.

But Everett's Providence Hospital wouldn't take Alex.

Instead they sent him to Children's Hospital. But when Alex arrived at Children's, they were full.

Six hours later, Alex ended up at Swedish Hospital.

Sara Nakagawa, Alex's step-mother, couldn't believe it.

"I'm angry that the hospital that is meant for children didn't have room for him," she said.

Rob Menaul from the Washington State Hospital Association says the reasons for diversion include: The rising number of those without health insurance using ERs as their primary health care facility, the rising population and a nursing shortage.

KING

12-year-old Alex Webster

"If a person is in a major accident and they can't get to the nearest best facility, of course there would be some danger involved," he said.

Several individual hospitals, King County and the Washington State Hospital Association are all working on solutions to the problem.

http://www.nwcn.com/health/stories/NW_0 ... 0d271.html

Oh boy, our high school is looking to open up a health clinic on site. One of the reasons for it was to get the people out of the emergency room that use it as their primary care place -deja vu.

They discussed it on a talk show and callers were furious. A local latina activist said that immigrants can't take a day off work or they will get fired. She gave lots of excuses as to why we need this clinic.

A caller asked are they going to accept illegal aliens. The local latina activist said most of their children are American citizens anyway.

It's not over yet. I feel the public is going to fight this. Our community does not want to take over yet another responsibility of parents. A board member called in and said we are the board of education not the board of health.

Can't wait to see how this turns out.

As I read this, two different potential solutions keep popping to mind -

1. The OBL/Globalist solution - 'just add more nurses' (undoubtedly, to be recruited from 'afar', and likely not English-fluent, etc, etc.)

2. My solution - Reduce the number of people crowding the ER; well, we can't do a whole lot in the short term about the # of uninsured Americans, but we can do something about the uninsured or growing numbers of those persons that aren't even supposed to be here...

Washington still issues driver's licenses to illegal aliens doesn't it? Perhaps this will help them see the error of their ways.

ER's need a triage system where patients are prioritized dependant on the severity of their condition.

"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power."
Franklin D. Roosevelt