Health Care Waste

Your ER Doc — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 08:45:31 +0000

For those of us who feel comprehensive health care reform is not needed, I would like to present the following case. I recently had a middle aged man who had undergone a common procedure on his kidney a few days prior. He had this procedure done in a city about 4 hours away. I asked why he didn’t have the procedure closer to home, and he answered that nobody took his MediCal. However, since he had been in the military, he was able to have the VA do it, but 4 hours away was their closest location with urology services. When I saw him, he had an infection. He needed to be admitted, and unfortunately, he had to go back to where the procedure was done. And of course, he needed to go there by ambulance, just in case “anything happened.” Naturally, this was the middle of the night, and so we had to get the medics and ambulance and send them on an 8 hour round trip ride to transfer this patient, who could easily have been treated closer to home. Follow up will be very difficult for this patient, as he will undoubtedly not drive 4 hours unless absolutely necessary.

I wish these stories were unusual, but they are not. I realize there is no perfect system, but our current method is so inefficient and expensive, I have to think there are better alternatives.

Your ER Doc » VA

Health Care Waste