From the Redding Record Searchlight:
With her kidney and pancreas failing as she awaited a transplant, Pauline Paul often became nauseous, sometimes dangerously so.
When that happened, the 41-year-old Redding woman would go to the emergency room at Mercy Medical Center. Her doctors often admitted her overnight to be monitored, said her husband, Dan Paul.
But on May 14, the Redding hospital’s emergency room was packed, and they sat in the crowded waiting room for six hours as Pauline Paul vomited blackish-red gunk into a bag before she was brought inside to see a doctor, her husband said.
Such long waits at Mercy have become more common and may have prompted an investigation into laws associated with federal anti-patient dumping statutes.
Mercy officials acknowledge that emergency room visits have increased by almost 30 percent since 2005, but contend that in April, measures were put in place that reduced the average length of time emergency room patients wait before they’re evaluated and put on a triage list.
But Paul said that when his wife did eventually get in to see a doctor, the physician appeared flustered and rushed, as if there were too many patients needing care at the time.
Paul expected a quick admittance to a hospital bed but was surprised when she was sent home with orders to go to her normal dialysis treatment the next day.
“They just turned her away real quick like,” Dan Paul said. It was a decision that may have proved fatal.
Filed under: Uncategorized
