Home Editor's Picks Man in US Furious About Waiting 15 minutes in ER; Meanwhile Patient in South America Limps 11 Miles, Waits 4 Hours, and is Grateful for Tylenol

Man in US Furious About Waiting 15 minutes in ER; Meanwhile Patient in South America Limps 11 Miles, Waits 4 Hours, and is Grateful for Tylenol

Doktor Schnabel
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Man in US Furious About Waiting 15 minutes in ER; Meanwhile Patient in South America Limps 11 Miles, Waits 4 Hours, and is Grateful for Tylenol

DENVER, CO – 46-year-old Marcus Stillbee is furious after waiting for 15 minutes to be seen at the local Quicky Care Medical Center ER in Denver yesterday.  Mr. Stillbee injured his ankle during an intense game of flag football in an over 40-year-old intramural club league.

machete accident“The nerve of that ER to make me wait 15 minutes to be seen!” exclaimed Mr. Stillbee.  “That was just to see the provider.  Then I had to wait for the x-rays to be taken, then read, and finally a diagnosis to be made.”

“It didn’t end there,” fumed Stillbee.  “I had to wait 30 more minutes for paperwork, and then I had to wait 50 minutes at the damn pharmacy to get my pain meds.  2 hours total, just despicable!  I was going to miss Game of Thrones if I hadn’t DVR’d it.”

Meanwhile, 2482 miles away, during the exact same moment, in a remote village in a South America, Mr. Ernesto Jose Rodriguez Jr. injured his leg in a freak machete accident.  Mr. Rodriguez works 7 days a week in the sugar fields performing hard manual labor with a machete and makes $50 a week to support his family.  In the 100-degree heat, Mr. Rodriquez slipped and accidentally cut his right leg.

Limping 11 miles to the nearest medical facility, Mr. Rodriquez patiently waited 4 hours behind 150 others to be seen.  The clinic dispensed 5 Tylenol tablets to him, along with some antibiotics and gauze wrap which had been donated by a medical organization.  Mr. Rodriquez was grateful to receive medical care and decided to rest 30 minutes before walking the 11 miles back home to start work again tomorrow.

Mr. Stillbee was still fuming at home, as he propped his sprained ankle up on his leather sofa, Heineken in hand, while watching Game of Thrones.  “The nerve of that ER!  I can’t wait to fill out a NEGATIVE patient satisfaction card.  No HD TV!  WiFi signal was only 10 mbps!  They even brought me the wrong sandwich.”

32 COMMENTS

  2. The purpose of the article was to point out the “entitled” attitude American’s have about life in general and to bring light to the need for medical supplies in third world countries. We already donate hundreds of millions of dollars annually to other countries, therefore I don’t believe we need to donate more. I do however work in the ER, and can tell you that 90% of the patients we see don’t belong there and are unappreciative. If you’re in the emergency room, then you’d better have an emergency. That means you shouldn’t care if you have a tv, a meal, or a warm blanket. If your waiting, then you aren’t dying. People come into the ER thinking it’s a Holiday Inn. As a nurse I’m lucky if I get a 30 min lunch break, lucky if I get to pee during my shift, and all the while I get to listen to entitled patients complaining about having to wait 15 min for anything, all while being given narcotic pain meds that most of them don’t need but would bitch about if they didn’t have. You’d be surprised at how little the government actually pays a hospital for services rendered. Every PA and NP I work with just got their medical insurance cut completely, because Medicare/Medicaid doesn’t reiemburse enough to pay them. So maybe the public should be a little less entitled and a little more appreciative and see their damn doctor before going to the ER for a simple cold.

  4. OMG, how do you handle a situation like that? It would be difficult for me not to lose my temper.

    And God forbid you bring the wrong sandwich when you finally get around to it. ;)

  7. This is no surprise. I worked in an emergency room and can recall many times when patients were like this. Once during the afternoon when we were intubating a patient who was unable to breathe the woman from the next room came in and opened the curtain. She said “My husband has not eaten today, when is someone going to bring him a sandwich?”

  8. Must be nice in Denver, here in NYC ER wait times often exceed 6 hours, sometimes more- and that is just to be put on a gurney and let into the actual ER. I’ve spent 12 hours in a hallway in incredible pain and couldn’t even get someone to give me a shot or a pill probably because Ernesto Jsoe Rodriquez’s brother’s baby mamma brough 6 kids to the ER to get strep throat tests for which she won’t have to pay.

    What was the point of this article? So you think we don’t know we have it better than the 3rd world? I don’t need to be reminded there are kids starving in Africa- my grandmother would remind me every time I ate dinner. To be blunt, I don’t care- not when I am in pain and need to see a doctor. I only need to see a doctor by the way because the government forces me to in order to get medicine that can help me. If government would remove that artificial barrier they created I wouldn’t have to worry about this and there wouldn’t be multi-hour waits to begin with.

  9. That’s true. But the ER in the USA would charge you an enormous amount of money for its services. Hence, the expectations…

  11. I recently went to ER b/c I suck at my T1 sick day management. Couldn’t eat, so blood sugar plummeting. I was doing micro-dosing of glucagon to offset that until my liver ran out of sugar. No eating for 3 days and lots of glucagon shots make liver very unhappy. Oops. Anyway, doc and staff were awesome. Admitted me on a glucose drip with lots of anti-nausea stuff. My blood sugar was 27 when the ambulance picked me up (after trying two glucagon shots in vain about 20 minutes apart each.) and hooked me up with the D-50 right away. Paramedics were shocked that I was actually walking and talking coherently at 27. What can I say? It’s a gift!

  14. On Saturday I had to go to the ER for weed eating accident. I was shocked when I walked in and she said this gentleman will show you to room 3. They hadn’t even asked me for my name!!!!!! With in 3 mins IF that long the dr was in there administering numbing medicine. The whole time they told me what they were doing. Total visit was under an hour. After being home a couple hours I had a question about my care and called the ER. I was immediately put on the phone with the actual dr that had seen me. He helped me and after I apologized for taking up his time, he assured me that’s what he’s there for. I couldn’t have been more please and honestly shocked how well the visit went.

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