Text 12988, 54 rader
Skriven 2008-03-15 07:58:06 av Bob Ackley (1:300/3)
  Kommentar till text 12803 av Björn Forsström (2:203/614.61)
Ärende: American ambulance
==========================
Replying to a message of Björn Forsström to All:

 BF> Now I will be called a liar again.....

Not by me.

 BF> Todat, Friday, there was a very interesting report on Fox that I think
 BF> Roy should see but I guess that he's response is that I didn't see
 BF> this either.

 BF> 50 000 ambulances per year are not able to go to the nearest
 BF> hospital because the ER is undermanned due to lack of money
 BF> so many are dying in the ambulance during transporting all over
 BF> the city.

I think 50K is a bit high.  In any case I do know that many hospitals are
closing their emergency departments because they're losing so much money
keeping them open.  Which means - obviously - that there are fewer places
for ambulances to take emergency cases.

Many years ago the rules/agreements in the Omaha area was that the rescue
squads (ambulances run by the city fire department) would take emergency 
patients to the nearest emergency room.  Makes sense, doesn't it?  Then a
van full of Creighton University students went out of control and crashed on
the Interstate near the 150 or so bed Lutheran Hospital (since closed) at about
0300.  Lutheran had *one* physician and *two* nurses on duty in its ER and
no trauma center, and suddenly had about 15 critical cases dumped on it all
at once.  The University of Nebraska Medical Center is located about five miles
away but was aware of the situation because all of the area ERs used the same
radios.  UNMC phoned Lutheran and asked if they could help, Lutheran said
basically 'Hell yes!' and UNMC immediately sent several physicians and nurses
from its ER to Lutheran 'code 3' (red light and siren).  The rescue squad rules
were changed shortly thereafter to take critical patients to one of the city's
trauma centers (UNMC and Creighton University's Saint Joseph Hospital).

 BF> And America have the best healthcare in the world, my ass.

I could argue the point a bit.  If you will remember several years ago an
airliner
crashed on landing at Sioux City Airport, about 100 miles north of Omaha.  That
day, Archbishop Bergan Mercy Hospital in Omaha (where I was working at the
time)
chartered a couple of busses and sent thirty of its nurses to Sioux City to
assist
Mercy Hospital there with its case load from the crash, the nurses were in
Sioux City
for about a week.

You will note that in both of the preceding stories there was *no* government
funding or intervention (in the UNMC case the decision making was done by the
administrator on duty, not by any politician).

--- FleetStreet 1.19+
 * Origin: Bob's Boneyard, Emerson, Iowa (1:300/3)