How do different systems work in different countries? For example, how would this scenario play out under different systems:
I had a bladder infection a month ago. I guess my immune system was down. Too much work, maybe? Stress? Well, things seized up and my bladder filled up like a balloon. Could have kicked the bucket with this one! I went to the ER and they stuck a catheter in me (I had gone to the Dr. a few days previous and he gave me the wrong antibiotic!). I hobbled around for a week with a plastic sack strapped to my leg and that horrible rubber tube jammed up my poor John-Thomas! I am on antibiotics and Flomax as a safeguard against possible complications--prostatitis!--and I go back to the urologist Friday.
I went to the ER three times. The first time was Sunday, when they said I was given the wrong antibiotic and they gave me a new one. The second time was Monday, when I couldn’t go to the bathroom and they gave me the catheter. The third time was Monday night, when I really had an problem. I had a catheter in me! Now that was an emergency!
I went back to the ER and tried to get admitted to the hospital because I live alone and I couldn’t take care of myself. I was in a lot of pain, and then there was this sack thing! I couldn't believe they had sent me home. It was nuts! Well, as things went they didn’t admit me and I went back home and toughed it out till that Friday when the catheter came out, thank goodness!
The third time I was in the ER there was across from me a very old woman with all kinds of problems. She was in her eighties and she was with her sixty-something son and her forty-something grand-daughter. They were practically begging the doctor to move her from the ER and properly admit her to the hospital. Well . . . the doctor in charge was waiting for a telephone call from the woman's "primary care provider" and who knows what bureaucratic "rubric" that needed to be filled out. Obviously the woman needed to be admitted, but then there is this system in the way….
In both cases (mine and hers) I couldn’t help wondering, say, if fifty years ago in this country both the woman and I would have been admitted as a matter of course and the cost would have been reasonable. Where is common sense? Who do we thank for this, the MBA’s?
I had a bladder infection a month ago. I guess my immune system was down. Too much work, maybe? Stress? Well, things seized up and my bladder filled up like a balloon. Could have kicked the bucket with this one! I went to the ER and they stuck a catheter in me (I had gone to the Dr. a few days previous and he gave me the wrong antibiotic!). I hobbled around for a week with a plastic sack strapped to my leg and that horrible rubber tube jammed up my poor John-Thomas! I am on antibiotics and Flomax as a safeguard against possible complications--prostatitis!--and I go back to the urologist Friday.
I went to the ER three times. The first time was Sunday, when they said I was given the wrong antibiotic and they gave me a new one. The second time was Monday, when I couldn’t go to the bathroom and they gave me the catheter. The third time was Monday night, when I really had an problem. I had a catheter in me! Now that was an emergency!

The third time I was in the ER there was across from me a very old woman with all kinds of problems. She was in her eighties and she was with her sixty-something son and her forty-something grand-daughter. They were practically begging the doctor to move her from the ER and properly admit her to the hospital. Well . . . the doctor in charge was waiting for a telephone call from the woman's "primary care provider" and who knows what bureaucratic "rubric" that needed to be filled out. Obviously the woman needed to be admitted, but then there is this system in the way….
In both cases (mine and hers) I couldn’t help wondering, say, if fifty years ago in this country both the woman and I would have been admitted as a matter of course and the cost would have been reasonable. Where is common sense? Who do we thank for this, the MBA’s?
Comment