It wasn't me...

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I hate that this crap gets on the news.
Sensationalism at its best. Seriously, a drunk homeless person, who is combative and then asks for food. Unlike all the other homeless people. What did the news channel want the hospital to do? Feed her just because she is homeless? Because that wouldn't make all homeless people sit in the waiting room complaining of abdominal pain so that they could get their free sandwich. Which happens already to a great extent. And then, since I am sure they watched her before letting her leave, since she had a postive BAL, do they expect the hospital to work on placement issues? Should she get to use an ED bed?
Oh, and I call BS on the reports of "dumping" her. Nobody is that stupid. If there was a tech who wheeled her out and did that, he should be fired. Who drives gurneys across the street anyway? She wouldn't get in a wheelchair?
 
im guessing they are all in it and there will be a lawsuit and those peeps are in it with the woman. Im guessing they get nothing and the story dies quietly because this woman and her peeps are all in some big conspiracy..

Did we land on the moon 😀
 
Often when the homeless demand litigation, they then have to truly identify themselves, and a list of outstanding warrants appear. Then the aforementioned individual, who is otherwise an upstanding citizen, quickly disappears.
 
People don't seem to realize that the cost of having the ED feed the hungry and house the homeless is that when your mom has an MI or your son ruptures an appy they may be stuck in the waiting room waiting for a bed since the ED is full of drunk homeless people with no where to go. I had a bed last night filled all night with a drunk(BAL=500) kicked out of Detox for threatening the staff. He was medically cleared as he had been the day before that and the day before that and so on... Detox wouldn't take him. The police wouldn't take him. Since when is being an antisocial homeless drunk a medical emergency?

As for IbnSina's belief that no tech was that stupid, don't count on it. My secret sources tell me that the number of times she has been "escorted" out of the ED after being denied narcotics and threatening the staff might best be measured in dozens and on any given day you could have caught almost any member of the ED staff doing it
 
Actually, we decided the safest thing for the city was to give the two dudes a job
 
ERMudPhud said:
As for IbnSina's belief that no tech was that stupid, don't count on it. My secret sources tell me that the number of times she has been "escorted" out of the ED after being denied narcotics and threatening the staff might best be measured in dozens and on any given day you could have caught almost any member of the ED staff doing it
Click to expand...

Then maybe they should be more discreet about it. Or drive her further away.
Charity Doc of Crack City
Still, those two "innocent bystanders" were just soaking up that attention. The whole story seems dirty.
 
If you want to avoid news like this, you've got to send out the charge nurse to talk to the news crew and tell about what that patient was really like. I'm sure she deserved worse than she got. I mean, she obviously wouldn't walk out the door. Who hasn't had security escort someone out? She obviously doesn't have an emergent medical condition or it would have been mentioned in the news report, so the screening physician did all he had to.
 
Treating homless drunk patients is like playing an attending game of duck-duck-goose. Sure, most of us get the duck but one of us will eventually get the goose. I hope if I get the goose I get my seat back.

Deep Thoughts by Fatty McFattypants...
 
Desperado said:
If you want to avoid news like this, you've got to send out the charge nurse to talk to the news crew and tell about what that patient was really like. I'm sure she deserved worse than she got. I mean, she obviously wouldn't walk out the door. Who hasn't had security escort someone out? She obviously doesn't have an emergent medical condition or it would have been mentioned in the news report, so the screening physician did all he had to.
Click to expand...
In America, the land of sticking it to the ERs, it's fine for the patient to talk to the media about her various issues but if the charge nurse or any other hospital employee talks to anyone about they've violated HIPAA and will be summarily executed. There is no equal time provision for health care providers slandered by the media.
 
docB said:
In America, the land of sticking it to the ERs, it's fine for the patient to talk to the media about her various issues but if the charge nurse or any other hospital employee talks to anyone about they've violated HIPAA and will be summarily executed. There is no equal time provision for health care providers slandered by the media.
Click to expand...

There should be a provision, whereby if the patient publicly discloses health information, then the hospital is allowed to disclose information rebutting her claims, or supporting their decisions.

I think the local news channels should leave us business cards. That way when I discharge drunk/homeless/belligerent people, I can give them a card and a taxi voucher. I'm sure the news stations will provide a cot, and a warm meal for them.
 
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