I bring forth to the discussion of real world events the following.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-east-wales-25760351

 

Short story:

 

A man who was being treated for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease died after being in severe pain. His wife had phones for an ambulance 3 times and was told the service was "very busy" and would send an ambulance as soon as one was available.

 

She rang a 4th time to tell them not to bother as he had died.

 

This is becoming quite a thing with the UK health service, not just failure to respond in time but failure to follow correct procedures and other situations.

Search the BBC news website for NHS and feel free to read.

 

I personally don't think they should turn people down like this, regardless. "Emergency Services" in the UK seem to be getting abused heavily by a lot of people, what do you guys think about this?

 

For the record, the UK has a non-emergency phone number (101 for the police and 111 I think for ambulance, for advice), but these were reported as also being far too slow last year.

Edited January 16, 201412 yr by LukeD

It's a combination of people abusing the NHS, and the government/suits in charge failing to give the NHS enough money to have the staff, vehicles and equipment needed to keep up with the demand of the service.

Ambulances in Wales are in a really bad state by the looks of things.  I'm not sure that this is a reflection on the UK on the whole - it seems to be quite a concentrated problem in Wales.  Certainly, in Scotland, things aren't nearly that bad.

It's unfortunate, but it's a problem in many places.

 

http://talkingeyesmedia.org/firestorm

http://www.imdb.com/video/withoutabox/vi1805714713?ref_=tt_pv_vi_1

 

That's a documentary I caught a year or two ago on television. I thought it was something else entirely, but after the first few minutes of trying to figure out what it was I was already glued to it.

 

It was showing the poor state of healthcare in Los Angeles, and how hospital systems are in a state of disrepair and the LAFD is essentially being used for treatment rather than transport to proper treatment. As a result, the same thing happens that did here - the ambulance service is stretched thin, in some cases firefighter/EMT's are then being used more for EMT services than they are for firefighting until paramedics are available, and then if the patient is transported to a hospital, the hospital is beyond the status of "over-capacity" which results in patients (and sometimes the LAFD crew) waiting for an open bed.

 

This event in particular was highlighted in the documentary (quoted from Wikipedia):

 

 

 

On May 9, 2007, Rodriguez is reported to have lain on the floor of the hospital's emergency department waiting room for 45 minutes while boyfriend José Prado made calls to 911 to report that Rodriguez was dying but hospital staff could not be convinced to treat her. According to waiting room video, and a June 15, 2007 report by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, for at least 30 minutes "staff members walked past the patient or worked to clean the floor next to her without interacting with her"; at one point a janitor cleaned the floor around Rodriguez as she vomited blood. A bystander made a similar call, telling the 911 dispatcher that a woman vomiting blood was being ignored by emergency-room staff. The caller requested an ambulance to transport the woman to another hospital, but her request was refused; emergency dispatchers would not act on the situation, nor call paramedic services, citing that the victim was at a hospital. The nighttime triage nurse, after repeatedly refusing to intervene, complained to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department that Rodriguez was causing a disturbance; officers ran a computer search on Rodriguez and found that she had a parole violation for possession of a controlled substance. As police were taking her into custody, Rodriguez became unresponsive and died on a stretcher.

 

As Sam said about the UK in his post, this probably isn't a reflection of the US as a whole, but it isn't an isolated problem in a certain place either.

Edited January 16, 201412 yr by penguin2254

The Scottish Ambulance Service was struggling at times with waiting times for ambulances of over 90 minutes on occasions. However the service had drastically improved and ambulances, from when I have called them, been on scene extremely quick to treat the casualty.

Swedish emergency services are also failing to keep up, sometimes not even responding to telephone calls. It's a really worrying development. 

Obviously I'm not European, but I haven't been keeping up on how Europe is doing. Especially western Europe. Do things seem to be getting better or worse? By the looks of these comments and topics, it seems to be getting worse.

Not enough money and not enough people is the problem over here. The governments are cutting more and more from the budgets without caring that the services are worsened as a result, at worst they expect the same level of service.

 

The trend within emergency services and hospital care is that they cut budgets, which means they have to lay off people and cut expenses in any way they can. Those that are making decisions are also fine with that corners has to be cut and "alternative" measures in some cases.

 

The people that do work in government sectors are overworked, underpaid, considered disposable. They're frustrated, angry and generally upset that they can't do the job they care about the way they deem it's bet. They know that they will be fucked over if they don't produce the results that are required. Getting shat on by your superiors and top brass over and over is fair worse than being without a job. These people care deeply about their job, but they're forced to do it badly.

As ineseri said, we have the same problem in Sweden. However, it's not that bad (in Stockholm atleast). Now, I can only speak for Stockholmers since that's where I live, but the economy is going up in Sweden. In the area where I live, we have a bigger problem with the police at the moment. Took them 1 hour to respond to a burgluary in progress (comfirmed by the people who lived there, they're my neighbours). Even though the local police station is 5 minutes (with car) away from their house, and we also have a bigger station 7 minutes away (with car) so don't know what was going on there

We also had a horrible story involving a Västergötland county (gothenburg is located in that county) police dispatcher not believing in a man who said that there was a burglar who had entered their house taking things and tried to break in to the bathroom (where he was calling from). It took him 27 minutes I believe before the dispatcher even dispatched a police patrol, and at that time the burglar had already escaped and set the house on fire. It ended with his mother dying and the whole house burning down. The suspect was arrested later that evening but it's quite a scary story.

 

Here's a really intresting news reportage about Detroit's EMS services taking too long responding. It's a great short documentary.

 

Edited January 16, 201412 yr by Crizby

Wow I mean now I'l mention Poland we always had not the best state health system and response times but things are not THAT bad.

I mean you definitely won't wait 90 minutes, my grampa had a minor pains and a ambulance arrived in less then 20 minutes(smaller town too).

Hope things get better for you guys.

Edited January 17, 201412 yr by lakajadiwa