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.
“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.”
