Am waiting for a friend in a NYC hospital whose marketing materials bill it as "world famous" and "award winning," and it teaches volumes about the state of health care in the United States today. THREAD
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I am sure they are doing great research, and have superb docs; the nursing staff is terrific and kind. And yet....
My relative, who has gold-plated insurance, was in the emergency room for almost two days before they could find her an actual room, a clear sign that there are not enough hospital beds in this city.
My relative's husband, a doctor, realized that one of his former students is on staff here, which was the string to pull to get her out of the hall.
Meanwhile, the presenting condition, as it were, was a urinary tract infection that had gone septic. But we will never know what it is, since no one took a blood or urine culture before starting her on antibiotics. Remember: "world class hospital."
Because of UTI, elimination was, of course an issue: thus followed multiple straight catheters, profoundly painful, and frightening, for an older person who was becoming more confused and unable to speak.
Which would lead you to be concerned about stroke, right? Now this is a world class hospital -- award winning, in fact (oh! I told you that!) -- and they ordered up an MRI. Good idea, right? Except that out of four MRIs... (wait for it)...
THREE WERE BROKEN -- leaving 1 MRI machine for the whole hospital. You know that part about if you have a stroke, and you get to the hospital, and they give you a drug stat, you will make a full recovery? This presumes you could actually get an MRI.
But it took almost three days to get an MRI. Three days. World class, award-winning, hospital in the biggest, wealthiest city in the United States, and no one is available to fix an MRI.
I don't want to be picky, and as I said, the nurses are outstanding. But this is a draft ethnography of a health care system in utter collapse. And btw I am assuming that this ten-day stay will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. @SenSchumer @SenGillibrand @HHSGov @SenSanders
