Too Soon (The Waiting Room PT 1)

I hate hospitals.  Having to watch a documentary about an emergency room, only weeks after spending 12 hours in one, was a little hard at times.

I could not watch and was squirming in my seat when they had to put an IV into this little girl who had strep throat.

One time when I was in the hospital for my asthma, it took the nurse 3 times to get it right in the back of my hand.  

In another scene someone with breathing problems was given a mask with a vapor coming out of it.  I was given a very similar treatment four times a few weeks ago.  They called it a nebulizer.  I had 3 more of these scheduled at the time of my release.   The treatment can be very affective and improve breathing significantly, as it did with me a few weeks ago.

At the Grace Hospital ER they have signs saying abusive behaviour and language will not be tolerated.  I thought of this as I watched the documentary and saw a patient curse at the nurse who was taking his vital signs.

Later on, a patient on dialysis was cursing at his Dr.  He had enough and would rather die than spend any more time at the emergency room.   

That’s the thing about going to a hospital.  When you check yourself in you do so wanting to check yourself 

out as quickly as possible.  The waiting only prolongs the process, dragging it out and making it more painful than it seemingly needs to be.

I saw a lot of similarities between my own experiences at an emergency room and waiting in the waiting room with what was going on in the film.

A big issue that the staff at the Grace was constantly discussing was the lack of beds they had at the hospital, and a lack of rooms to put people in.

During the 1990’s I got a firsthand look at what was called “hallway medicine”, and can vividly recall seeing a lot of patients, many of them elderly, lying in beds in the hallway of the emergency room.

A few weeks ago, the majority of my time, after being admitted to the hospital, was spent in the hallway.  In my hallway there were 4 more patients, all of them elderly, lying in beds.

Like in the film, I also faced a long time waiting in the waiting room before being taken back into the emergency ward.

Like the patients in the movie, the first thing I did was get in line to be triaged by a nurse.  In an emergency room, they see people in an order based on the seriousness of the illness or medical condition, not on a first come first serve basis.  There were a few people who got frustrated by this in the film.  Usually, because of my asthma condition I am admitted right away.  A few weeks ago I was not, because my symptoms were not that serious.  A patient that had arrived via ambulance was admitted immediately.

As in the movie, when I finished being assessed in triage, I was given something to identify who I was that was wrapped around my wrist.

Another similarity with the film was that in Canada, they ask questions to make sure a person has a safe place to go to after being released.

A social worker asked some very similar questions to the elderly Asian man who was being treated in the same hallway as I was.

They asked him what medications he was.  They asked him if he lived by himself and if he had a caregiver at home.  They even asked if he had a lot of stairs at his home.

The biggest difference between my experience in an emergency room in Canada, and the emergency room depicted in the film, had to do with health insurance and the costs associated with receiving treatment.

In all of the times I have been to the emergency room (at least 7 times in my life) I have never had to pay anything.  Going to an emergency room in Canada has always been free.  Sadly this is not the case for all of the patients in the film.

There are a few scenes where payment terms are discussed and the patient has to pay a bill.  In Canada this has never happened to me.

There was a big difference in terms of scale, between my experiences at the Grace Hospital emergency room, and the one depicted in the film.

The hospital in the film had at least 8 Dr.’s on call in the emergency room.  Whenever I’ve been at the Grace Hospital, there has only usually been one or two, maybe three.

There were a lot more gunshot victims in the film than has been my experience.  In my 7 plus visits I have never once seen someone come in because of a gunshot wound.  In the film there were at least 2 or 3, including the young teenager who died as a result of his wounds.  

 I spoke with some of my friends who still live in Korea to get a sense of what it was like to go to an emergency room in that country. 

One friend who had 10 stitches had to wait only minutes at a cost of only 70 000 won (about 70 dollars Canadian)

Another friend who had food poisoning a few days ago was in and out of the emergency room in 15 minutes at a cost of 60 000 won.