Aid for the E.R.s
I have recently run into some health problems which have sent me in a panic to the local emergency rooms. I tried one E.R., was unsatisfied ...
http://www.menifee247.com/2008/10/aid-for-ers.htm
I have recently run into some health problems which have sent me in a panic to the local emergency rooms. I tried one E.R., was unsatisfied with my care, so the next time my situation arose, tried another E.R., only to find worse care! I had tried the third E.R. in the past, and had sworn to never return. Now I am at a crossroads.
I don't know about the rest of you, but in Menifee, it doesn't seem that we have a good choice for emergency care. I am not talking about Urgent Care, of which we have excellent choices. Fabulous doctors and fantastic nurses work at the Urgent Care I occasionally go to. I am writing about E.R. care. If they are not overwhelmed, with what appears to be NOT emergencies, then the staff is callous and insensitive to the patient. I was treated as if I was lying about my symptoms at one E.R. just to get attention! I wasn't even asking for pain medication - it was something entirely different! But the staff seems as if they can't be bothered, the doctors seem rather bored and, well frankly, condescending! I was completely brushed off by one doctor, only to seek help the next day from another, who found the real problem. And yes, Doctor G.Q., (You know who you are - you are the Doctor who is sooo impressed with yourself!) it was real and I was not imagining my symptoms!!
Anyway, I would like to get some thoughts on this. I don't know why this is the case, but is there a better option I just don't know about for the residents of this valley?
I don't know about the rest of you, but in Menifee, it doesn't seem that we have a good choice for emergency care. I am not talking about Urgent Care, of which we have excellent choices. Fabulous doctors and fantastic nurses work at the Urgent Care I occasionally go to. I am writing about E.R. care. If they are not overwhelmed, with what appears to be NOT emergencies, then the staff is callous and insensitive to the patient. I was treated as if I was lying about my symptoms at one E.R. just to get attention! I wasn't even asking for pain medication - it was something entirely different! But the staff seems as if they can't be bothered, the doctors seem rather bored and, well frankly, condescending! I was completely brushed off by one doctor, only to seek help the next day from another, who found the real problem. And yes, Doctor G.Q., (You know who you are - you are the Doctor who is sooo impressed with yourself!) it was real and I was not imagining my symptoms!!
Anyway, I would like to get some thoughts on this. I don't know why this is the case, but is there a better option I just don't know about for the residents of this valley?
I know exactly what you mean... our son needed stitches on a weekend...we had a terrible time trying to find help.
ReplyDeleteYou are right our hospital care in the Menifee area is a joke. Menifee Hospital was designed and is run more toward the elderly population then the total community.
ReplyDeleteThere is no pediatric or OB capability. I believe all cardiac surgury patients are shipped to different hospitals and most of them go long distances for their conditions.
One of the major problems with ER's in America, is the fact that people treat them like doctors offices. If you go to the ER and sit in the waiting room you will find more people with cronic non-life threatening conditions. These people take beds away from serious patients or delay 911 paramedic ambulances from clearing hospitals due to lack of bed space. Sometimes the 911 ambulances are delayed 3-4 hours waiting for a open bed!
Now I cannot blame Menifee Hospital for this problem as it is a national issue. But for anyone out there reading this try to get all of your neighbors to understand that ER's are not doctors offices. Keep the non emergency cases out of the ER's and allow the emergent case to be seen and I bet everyone's attitude will improve. Especially those who need treatment from those facilities.
Unfortunatly I don't think we have any other choices unless you want to drive to Corona. 2 years ago I was pregnant and started having blurred vision. I called my doctor and they said to go to the ER to be checked out. My husband, my 2 year old and I went...I waited about 40 minutes to be triaged and then I ended up telling my husband to take our son home and that I would wait by myself. I had a headache but my vision had long cleared up. Another pregnant woman came in via ambulance because she had passed out in a college classroom, she was checked initially and then sent to the waiting room. After 4 hours I gave up. I felt fine and I was not about to wait another 3 to 4 hours like most were saying they had waited a total of 7-8 that day. Thankfully I was fine and my daughter is very healthy.
ReplyDeleteThe "aid for the ERs" you speak of is going to have to come in the form of better bedside manner training for the doctors and a revamped health care system. I would probably not be very friendly either if all day I was seeing people who don't have real emergencies but can't afford to have health insurance so the only choice is to go the ER. I would feel as though my Emergency medicine training was being wasted. I think it is a sad situation, I am not mad or frustrated with people who don't have health insurance, my heart goes out to them. I am frustrated that there is not a better system.
Ah ha, we need a free or cheap clinic for non insured/non emergency patients. Unfortunately I can't imaging Dr. GQ donating his precious time, can you?
I have heard very negative things about all 3 hospitals in our area. I really don't get it? Lets hope and pray the new hospital set to be built in Murrieta (I believe on Antelope) will be better.
ReplyDeleteComplain to the hospital in writing. Every care giver will tell you that is the only thing that is noticed. Write about it to all three. And write the P/E. Your bad experience will be heard. It may be a drop in the proverbial ocean but it will help.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the previous poster. I know many people, including myself that have received sub par care at any of the three emergency rooms in our area.
ReplyDeleteYou need to not only complain to the hospital about your service (dont forget the date, and any names of those that gave you that bad care) but to your insurance company. When it comes to money, the hospitals listen and if there are too many complaints to the insurance about a specific location the insurance company will contact the hospital and find out what is going on. Hospitals react quickly to who the money is coming from (insurance companies).
I am truly looking forward to Loma Linda Univ. opening a medical center in this area. They are tough on their staff about giving excelent service and in the past I have had nothing but excelent care from them.
Have been to both Menifee Valley Hospital E.R. as well as the Murrieta hospital E.R. off of Hancock ave. I didn't have any problems with either hospital and was treated with dignity and respect at both hospitals.
ReplyDeleteE.R. visits are not a pleasant thing no matter how good of a hospital you go to. I've been to Cedars Sinai E.R. where all the hollywood celebrities go and thought it would have been the best care (it was just like every other E.R.). What i've found is that you must demand service, question everything and do not let a doctor leave without having every question answered to your satisfaction (that is provided you are conscious).
I am however looking forward to the new hospital going in off of Antelope between Clinton Kieth and Scott Road. This is a Loma Linda backed hospital which doesn't really mean anything because that just means it will be a learning hospital, so you expect even longer waits and questionable service. I think they are supposed to break ground sometime this month.
My daughter went to the ER in Murietta a couple of weeks ago and the place was crowded. Thought we would be there for days with the amount of people waiting and she was given excellent service. In fact, she had better service and more thorough testing performed at this hospital than I did for similar injuries at a very prominent hospital in Orange County several months ago.
ReplyDeleteI was pleased with the service and have no complaints what-so-ever.
Has anyone stopped to think that when the common person goes to the ER they are sick or injured and probably not in the best of moods in the first place. Now combine that with extended ER waits,ICU patients being held in the ER for hours and sometimes days.
ReplyDeleteLet us not forget the emotion of a patients death or pending death. How about the 85-90 year old who is dying and their family will not come to the ER. Or the frusrtations of getting a critical patient when you are swampt with runny noses and the flu.
I have worked emergency rooms and I tell you first hand that just about everyone in those ER's is there because they want to be there. They like the challenge of emergency care and are set-up for and trained to do such. A day/night of doctor office or urgent care business is human taxing as well as financial burden to the facility.
I have been treated at Menifee ER and then admitted to the floor. Although I have some complaints, they are not far off of complaints I hear from others at different facilities.
We need a regional hospital in this area that can handle peds, OB and is good with ortho. A good womwens facility would be nice.Good facilities also help attract good specialist doctors.
This area has grown huge leaps, now it is time for the City of Menifee to look to the future and assist in building up the infra-structure needed.
When Menifee Valley Hospital was built, it was designed for a much smaller population, and now that the area has grown in leaps and bounds, they do not have the doctors or captabilities to handle the volumn of patients seen on a daily basis. This is very unfortunate, but is a way of life. I was taken by ambulance and paramedics to Menifee Valley hospital a couple of years ago, and waited 17 hours for surgery, with a ruptured appendix. Not inflamed, but ruptured. This was not exceptable treatment, and was a life threatening condition. Two weeks after getting out of the Hospital, I started having chest pain and thought of the possibility of a pulmonary embolis? Again I went to the same Hospital, and waited 7 hours to be seen by the Doctor. 7 hours with chest pain, and waiting in an over crowded Emergency Room. Again, very poor patient care. I complained to the Hospital Administrator, both on the phone, and in writing. They said they would review my case, but I would not be allowed to be given the results. What's the point, all the doctors and surgeons are still there, so complaining does not appear to resolve a critical situation. A new Hospital, with more doctors and nurses, and another Emergency Room will definitely help, but will not solve the problems with the Hospital overcrowding. Some of the above comments are correct, if it's not life threatening, go to an urgent care center or your own doctor. Leave emergency rooms for just that, emergencies.
ReplyDeleteYou are right about overcrowding in the ER's. I took my daughter to the ER and while waiting in the waiting room - I noticed who else was there. Too many people with no health insurance and possibly no legal status - seemed to be there for simple problems. They use the ER like an urgent care as they are not accepted in other urgent cares without insurance or the money to pay for care.
ReplyDeleteToo much of our medical care and finances are used for illegals and uninsured patients.
It is unfortunate, but very true that ER's dictate what goes on in a hopsital and hopsitals are slow and beyond capacity. There may be 10-15 available floor beds, but not the staffing to use those beds. One reason is the trickle down effect of patient care.
ReplyDeleteWhen a patient goes to the ER as a serious emergeny case, they are treated in the ER and if admit is needed they progress to the correct floor or ward. However, sometimes there is not enough room or manpower so that patient gets left in the ER as a holding ground.
Now throw one or two of those cases in any community ER along with the 10 or so true Urgent Care cases and the rest that are between Urgent Care and serious and wow what a mess. I did not even mention those who want to get out of the elements either hot, cold or raining or those who just want some attention. If you do not believe this is a daily occurance talk to some of the ER folks.
Change needs to come in two areas. Number one people have to seek appropiate medical attention. ER's are not a place to go when you have had a non emergent long term issue. They are not one stop shopping where you can get initial treatment then neglect to do any follow-up care so that they come back to the ER 14 days later with the same problem and start all over again.
Second hospital's need ro realize that this issue is not going away. So, instead of referring these folks to a local urgent care, create a local urgent care as a leg of your ER. Send all of the non-emergent cases there to wait. If they want the treatment they will wait their turn no different then at a doctors office. If that Urgent care is a wing of the hospital and a true ER patient goes to the wrong door, it does not require a 911 call with fire and EMS to move them 50 feet.
I guess there actually is a third thing here. Educate the public. We do nothing to educate the public because in my mind we are to worried about liability. The public has to know or at least know the emergent difference in a runny nose and a heart attack. Several large cities in America have a much more progressive Emergency Medical system then we do and their statistics show better survival rates as well. Hum is that a clue there!
I love the idea of the urgent care being an extension of the ER. That would help out a lot with the over-crowding aspect.
ReplyDeleteI have had nothing but horrible experiences going to a couple of the ER's around here. Not only the ER's, though - also the hospitals in general. I had a baby at Inland Valley - nightmare experience (nursing staff and doctor staff were mean, lazy, and rude - this was 16 years ago and I haven't been back since). I had leg surgery at Menifee Valley and that too was agonizing. The entire night an older lady was screaming for the nurses, kept getting out of bed and coming into my room, and finally they ended up strapping her in - she just screamed the entire time. Absolutely horrible! I got more rest at home with 3 little ones running around! I haven't had bad issues with Rancho Springs (or whatever they call the one in Murrieta now).
What I have seen is similar to what everybody else has seen - too many people using the ER as an urgent care. Sick people with fevers and feeling lousy - sometimes this is after a week of feeling this way. They should not be using the ER for heaven's sake.
I had to take my daughter in for an allergic reaction - hives, swelling that caused her eyes to shut and she was barely able to breathe - Menifee Valley told us it would be at least a 2 hour wait (there were 3 other patients that we could see in the waiting room) - I hightailed it out of there and sped down to Rancho (or whatever they're calling it now) and she was seen right away. They shot her full of drugs and got her breathing better. They were absolutely shocked that Menifee Valley wouldn't see her immediately. I've used Rancho for other situations - my daughter's broken leg, my other daughter's ankle that turned out not to be broken thankfully, my daughter's allergic reaction, that same daughter's ruptured eardrum (that was just plain scary), and my husband's broken wrist. Overall, they have been very good to us (maybe it's the repeat customer treatment - or our family made gold level status?)
I will absolute NOT use Menifee Medical Center any more.
I am new to Menifee. I have not been able to find an Urgent Care facility that is actually open 24 hours. The other problem I have come across is that most of the facilities do not even have an actual MD onsite. The facilities are being staffed with either Chiropractors and Physician assistants or something else. I've called them and asked if they have a MD available and I get the run around that well we have a something or other, but not an actual MD.
ReplyDeleteCan someone provide some names of facilities that they have used and/or share more information regarding the Urgent Care facilities in the Menifee area?
This would greatly be appreciated.
The terrible lack of concern & appathy at the Menifee Medical Center is no joke. A year ago I had a bad fall hit my head and broke my arm, They extimated my wait to be seen 4-6 hours. My wife took me to Sharp in San Diego (45 min. drive) and I was seen within 5minutes. I would not return to M.M.C. for any reason and recommend that all residents of our city lobby to bring a new facility to the region A.S.A.P. The M.M.C. is a disgrace to our community and the medical profession.
ReplyDeleteKaiser needs to quit building facilities close together adn build a hospital out here. Anywhere. I have to go to Riverside to get treatment that is non emergency and the Wildomar facility is ok but not large enough and non emergency. I have never been to the 3 local ER's (thank God) and have heard to stay away from MV. Kaiser is building a new Ontario hospital and redoing some of Fontana (both close together IMO) so you have Riverside, Fontana and Ontario as well as another Anaheim (already on in Anaheim Hills) but we have several hundred thousand people out here and NO major modern hospital. I welcome Loma Linda and hope Kaiser follows suit. Maybe we can bombard our councilmen and hospitals with emails and mail. Maybe the PE can help?
ReplyDeleteThe Physician/Loma Linda Hospital should be completed in 2 years. They are supposed to be breaking ground this month. It will be located on Antelope, between Scott Road and Clinton Keith, right across from the fire station. For "non emergent" problems, there is a 24 hour urgent care in Temecula on Winchester. They do stitches. Its called, "24 hour urgent care". Also, Fallbrook Hospital has a quality ER. Its about 26 miles from Menifee with ER waits usually shorter than 1 hour. Lastly, both inland valley ER and Rancho Springs ERs are expanding and should be open beginning 2009. Hope this helps! Eric Madrid MD
ReplyDeleteIf you think MV medical center is bad, just talk to anyone that has had to deal with Kaiser. I've had family members die waiting to get approval for a test. At least the normal hospitals, etc. will perform a test.
ReplyDeleteI would never use a Kaiser facility unless there were no other alternatives. I would even go to a veterinarians office before visiting a Kaiser facility.
In Riverside County have very poor service at hosptial like Menifee Medical and Kaiser and others. In San Diego County have excellent service and fast service at Scripps Clinic. I wish to have Scripps Clinic is around in Riverside County. Scripps Clinic is very best one!!!
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