Wake up in an ungodly hour of the night to find yourself gasping for breath. Or it could be your abdominal pain is unbearable. Or that your blood pressure shoots up to an unprecedented level? Without health insurance, whose monthly premiums are skyrocketing high and seemed unaffordable to those who only earn a measely monthly income, let alone the payments for the monthly bills such as utilities, amortizations and other basic needs, thinking of going to the hospital on emergency would become a nightmare.
But still you’ve got no other choice but to call 911 so that you can be immediately rushed to the hospital where you are supposed to go to. But even the ambulance wouldn’t just bring you to the hospital you want to go to without first asking if you’ve got any insurance. And the service fee runs to at least a thousand. However, the only advantage is that you can immediately be attended to at the hospital’s emergency department. Of course, with no insurance to pay for your impending hospitalization, there is always the government medical clinics and hospitals to come to your rescue.
The only advantage once you got sick in America is that you can get the proper medical attention first and bill you later. And if you’ve got no job, the social services department is always there to lend a helping hand, through the millions of taxpayers’ money, to answer for your fnancial shortcomings. In developing countries, down payment first before medical treatment is administered, even if the patient is already dying. They don’t care at all. Business is the name of the game, so they say.
However, there is only one problem that makes many patients miserable. And we can’t blame government hospitals if their emergency departments are always heavily packed with patients which makes it impossible for the hospital staff to attend to them at once. Sometimes, it is sad to see patients come in excruciating pains but have to remain seated for a long time before the patient is admitted to the emergency room. While others just collapse on the lobby due to a long queue at the registration department.
When we talk of "emergency", it simply means the patient needs immediate attention because he is fighting for his life. Otherwise, it would be too late already if he is no longer breathing. Time is very vital for someone’s rate of survival. But this is not always the case because in some emergency cases, the patients have to wait more than what is required before any medical attention is given. Of course, there is the question of space. In most goverfnment hospitals, seldom a room is vacant so that a patient sometimes has to stay in the intensive care unit before being transferred to a room shared by at least three people.
Next time, you go to the emergency department of a government hospital or medical clinic, it is always proper to tell the registration staff why you are there. If you need a medical check, say so. And most like, you will be referred to the Urgent Care Department, wherein doctors will conduct the check up and later give you the right prescriptions for your sickness. But there are instances when this does not happen because some of the staff at the registration room would misinterpret your purpose. Instead of just waiting for a few hours at the Urgent Care, you’ll end up waiting for almost 24 hours at the Emergency Room.