Upon reading an article, "U.S. hospitals try to pick up the ER pace" I was surprised to find that some hospitals are attempting to redeem themselves for long waits in the ER. Some items include major league baseball tickets, cinema passes, and meal vouchers.

The local hospitals where I live are atrocious when it comes to wait times. I've sat in the waiting room for the ER for hours before being seen, and after the initial nurse gets the rundown, at least another hour or more before the actual doctor shows up. In most cases, I wasn't given an actual diagnosis of the problem--just a prescription for LorTab (every time--even if I wasn't in pain) and sent on my merry way.

How would you rate your local Emergency Room? Great service and fast, or would you rather rot than visit it? Feel free to share stories!

Mine is horrible. The last time i went i was stuck in the waiting room for 9 hours. Then when they finally got me in a room i had to wait like 3 hours or so before the doctor even came in. After I had been in the waiting room for a couple hours someone came in with a paper cut(and yes they even said a paper cut) and they were seen almost immediatly.

Obviously, I wouldnt want to visit the ER ^.^, but I haven't really had to yet. I've had good luck *knocks on wood*. I have, however, had to visit the clinic once for a dehydration problem. The wait time was probably an hour or so (this is at a /clinic/) and we didn't exactly know what was wrong with me so I could have been dying, waiting there in the waiting room. It ended up being stomach pains caused by acid eating at the lining of my stomach as a result of the flu and the dehydration caused by it... but they just gave me medication for my nausia and sent me away. Crappy place. I rate it a 2/10.

edit:::

I realize 1 hour is a 'reasonable wait', but when you're dying of pain and you have to lie down on multiple chairs, and you are crying... and then someone who broke a toe and doesn't have internal problems goes in before you. That's just... irritating.

And then they dont do anything that helps me. In fact it made me throw up more.. I had earlier mostly just felt nausious and hadn't been eating.

Horrible. 0/10. A friend who was pregnant, 8 months at that and was having burning pains in her uterus, didn't get to see anyone for about 8 hours. Unacceptable IMO.

Not a pleasent expierence. I was very sick, couldn't keep any food/drinks down, having severe pains and aches, and was very weak. I had thrown up 27 times before noon. I waited 5 hours before anyone would even see me. I had to be treated for severe dehydration (because I had to wait so long!) I ended up having gastronenteritis. Trust me, it was not so nice.

The ER really needs to do something about this. People who are really sick need to be seen, and not wait for hours on end.

mine hmmm -10 out of 10 you wait out in a room with other sick people for 11 hours then you go into a little room for 5 hours then the training doctor comes in asks questions then leaves you wait about another hour.Then the training doctor comes back in with the doctor that has an M.D. and that docotr asks questions exams you then asks the same questions again and just leaves the room you wait for 30 minutes
they both come back in but with another doctor so thats 2 M.D. doctors and one training the 3rd asks the same questions and exams you then leaves. By the time those doctors saw you you'd probably be dead because they all come back with the anwser "We don't know whats going on she should drink plenty of fluids and eat healthy." WHEN I WAS IN THERE FOR A MIGRANE AND THEY MADE IT WORSE! I told them to give me something for pain and they reply "We don't like to give children or teens strong pain meds because they are addicting." then they leave the room and a nurse comes in with a big shot of Morphine and you sit there dumb founded.GRRR i hate my emergency room I can cure my own self better than they can.SHEESH!

I've been pretty lucky so far (hope I didn't jinx it just there), and I've only been to the ER twice, once for a dislocated arm, and once for a severe nosebleed (And I'm talkin' serious- I'd been bleeding for well over an hour). Both times I got in very quickly, because when I dislocated my arm, I was like five years old, and I was screaming bloody murder so they got me in pretty quickly just to shut me up, and the other time I didn't even have to wait five minutes because I was bleeding all over the place. So, I've just been lucky. But I've heard my friend's stories about their experiences, and it's not pretty. IE, my best friend's dad was having a heart attack (a HEART ATTACK PEOPLE!!), and they made him sit and wait his turn in the waiting room. He could have DIED, and they told him to take a number and wait his turn. So now, my friends and I have a joke, that if you need to go to the ER, you should just bleed all over the carpet and scream really loudly to get in more quickly!! *wink* LOL

When my husband broke his nose cheerleading (yes, cheerleading, don't EVEN start), we sat in the ER for more than 6 hours, it was nearly 3 in the morning by the time we were seen... I realize that it was just a broken nose but there weren't more than 3 other people in there when we arrived. 2 people came in after us and were seen before us, neither had much more wrong with them than he did and when we finally did see the doctor, all he did was prescribe some painkillers and tell us to go home. Apparently they aren't allowed to fix broken noses in the ER, something that would have been helpful had it been told to us in the first place...

All in all, I would probably give it a 3 out of 10...

On the total opposite end, our ER at home actually does pretty well in my opinion... I had some stomach problems when I was younger (I still have them, just not as bad anymore) and I got so sick one night that my mom had to take me to the ER. Well we saw a doctor the minute that we walked in the door, they ran tests, couldn't figure out what was wrong with me (still can't), but they were efficient, and did all they could to help... Maybe this is small town (my first story, Bowling Green, Kentucky) compared to big city (one of the biggest hospitals in Portland, Oregon)... I dunno.

When I was 15 I had to go to the ER for severe pains in my side. At the time I thought it was appendicitis. I had to wait in the ER 8 hours +. I was not happy and I was scared. It wasn't anything too serious in the end.

So I give my ER 1/10. according to my dad though it's better now so who knows.

*FAYE*::: I feel your pain... dehydration sucks. I've had it twice. The pain... it's agonizing, and no one believes you. I was in elementary school, crying and rolling on the floor, and the school nurses kept refusing to let me go home. And then my teacher, who actually cared, told me to go to the bathroom, do stretches, etc., and of course all of that made it worse. And then back came the nausia I had thought was gone a day or so earlier. Oh, the agony. And they gave me pills for nausia to treat abdominal pain that left me curled up in a ball, rolling in agony.

On another note, yet the same not, truth is, you may get faster treatment in a Clinic, but when you do get treatment it's most likely going to be wrong. My pediatric physician gave me a strong perscribed antacid and my mother made me down gallons of water and then I was right as rain in a day.

Idiots...

Depends on whether you have to pay or free . I've only been to an emergency once, long time ago, i don't remember how the service was, But, a not so recent friend's experience tells me it was horrible, she was in an accident, a car knock her and her then boyfriend, now husband over and her lips were torn at the edge towards the cheek, ouch, very painful, most of her teeth were knock out, she was sent to government's general hospital emergency room, she was made to wait in a not very clean waiting area, the waiting part isn't the worse, here come the worse... she was waiting and a nurse (NURSE) approach her with a needle and thread and ask if she wants to sew up her wound right there and then....

she pick up her stuffs jumps into a taxi and go to a paid, private hospital.

I went once years ago because the night before (a Sunday) I sprained my ankle. The next day I couldn't go to my doctor as he was on vacation, so I went to ER. What can I say? They couldn't find me a wheel chair so I limped around to get x-rays and to be examined.
Shudder..I hate hospitals.

Pretty much the same here in Stockholm, Sweden. Last time I needed their services I waited the whole night to see a doctor in the morning the next day...
Some of the nurses where nice thought, gave me acup of coffe and asked me How I was. On the other hand, anyone can do that, doesnt take a nurse...

The local one? Absolutely sh*t. The usual wait there, for me, is about 4/5 hours, and that's pretty much to always get told that "You're fine. Take some painkillers".
The last time I went there, I was in with both kneecaps partially dislocated. I got told, again, that I was fine and to go home and take some painkillers. I couldn't bend my knees at all, and the only way I could walk was with my mum on one side, and my dad on the other, both supporting my weight. The nurse (she was a cow, and barely let the doctor see me) just told my mum I was being a horrible child, and not bending my knees because I didn't want to. (My left kneecap dislocated again a few weeks later by accident, and the people at the city-hospital got it back in fine, but it took 3 weeks of intensive physio to get it completely back to normal, and I had to have an operation on my right knee to get the kneecap back in place, though.)
That was in November '05. Since then, I started going to the hospital in the city. (I've only been in the emergancy room there twice, but) the general wait there was about an hour, and the staff are alot nicer, and they pay more attention.

I really dislike going to the doctor and will put it off and self-treat unless it is obvious that I can't fix whatever is wrong, and even then I'll try to make a same- or next-day doctor appointment before heading to the ER, so the few times I've actually been to the ER have been for fairly serious problems.

In Texas I went in the middle of the night for severe abdominal pain, which turned out to be a kidney stone the size of a pencil eraser completely blocking off my kidney. I went in a little before midnight and got home around five, so that's not bad compared to some of the other posters' all-day experiences. The worst part was sitting there in excruciating pain (and I'm comparing to three childbirths with no pain medication) for hours until a nurse finally took pity on me, because I was vomiting from the pain, and gave me a shot of strong painkiller.

Here in Missouri our ER has a neat large-screened monitor that displays the five levels of emergency, from 1, a life-threatening injury; to 5, a routine illness that can safely be "put off" for up to 48 hours (or more). Under each section is the estimated wait time for that level of emergency, the number of patients waiting to see a doctor for that level, and the actual time those patients have been waiting to see a doctor. It didn't make the wait time seem shorter, but it was nice to know just what type of emergencies were being handled ahead of you (me).

What made up for the wait time (about 1 1/2 hours) was the attitude of the doctor who stitched me up. She was all about pain management and gave me three different pain medications--way more than necessary --so that I wouldn't be uncomfortable at all during the procedure.

I have way to much experience with the ER. My Grandma is there at least twice a year and she is admited just as much for about 3 days. I have also been to the hospital about 6ish times. The hospitals we have around here have added a 29 minute ER garrentee meaning if you don't see a docter within 29 minutes something bad happens to the docters. Wonder what.

But also the longest wait we had I belive is when my little brother he was 4 at the time stuck his hand in the bowling ball machine and the other time where he needed stiches for falling on a toy train. I belive it was still like 5ish when he has those 2 things and he had to wait around 15 minutes.

But if I ever need to go to the hospital it for some reason is always after 10ish so there is no wait at all.

lol, ive never been to hospital (except to visit my mum who had jt given birth to my sister) but my friend strained a ligament in here shoulder but the bone had popped up so it looked like it was dislocated and she had already braved through school and then when she got home her mums boyfriend whos an ambulance driver took her to the hospital and she had to wait 30minutes but she was fast tracked becuase of her mums boyfriend so if she wasn't she would have had to wait around 3 hours.

If you ever visit my country - hope and pray that you NEVER get ill!!! State provided healthcare in my country is appalling! The hospitals are severely understaffed, is dirty, and is poorly equiped. You will find patients lying on beds in passages (too few rooms), people sleeping without bedding/pillows/sheets. Food is appalling. My mother who is unemployed recently required hospitalisation, and she had to take her own bedding, food, gowns etc. There was no toilet paper in the loo's, no soap or hot water! How can people keep germs at bay without soap?

The emergency room is much the same - dirty etc.
You will wait many hours for assistance, it is not unusual to find no doctor on duty. You have to be patient (no pun intended). It is not unusual to hear stories of people who have died from relatively minor injuries - getting a doctor to assist is a huge problem.

Luckily I have Medical Insurance and can afford a private hospital. It will cost you an arm and a leg, luckily I have 2 arms and 2 legs!

I've only been to an ER once i can't remember it very well but when my brother went to one after smashing his head (had lots of stichs) he had to wait allmost hour although they where busy that day... this was the british NHS...

I know here in the U.S. our ER's are much better than alot of other places. Like the comment on South Africa,....I know I have it much much better with my hospital here than I would there. BUT......BUT, considering everything, my ER is horrid!!! I went in once, severly dehydrated, and had to be put on an IV. Well, after an hour of yelling at doctors and nurses that my IV drip hadnt gone down any.......a "Life Flight" (helicopter emergancy crewman) guy came into my room. He noticed that the nurse hadnt even turned on the IV. He also noticed that the needle was twisted in my arm. Thankfully he fixed it for me, but the ER still charged me for the hour I sat there with a closed IV.

My father was just in the ER, and he too had nothing but problems. However, my mother was with him and she knows everyone. So she got pissed and called in the top two doctors in the hospital. After they made a few speeches to staff, my fathers care went up 200%. So there are good people working there, and bad, But the system is so screwed up that negligance and oversight reign.

I gotta tell a lil story. When my dad went into the ER is was seriouse. My mother and I were scared. My mother is the head teacher at a private school. Many of her students parents are doctors. SO when she saw my fathers care was bad.............she marched straight up to her doctor parent and said "My husband needs better care! Remember I'm your childs teacher! Help my husband or Im gonna teach your kids the "ABC's" backwards! That'll screw em up for life!!

Here Down Under, it allllll depends on if you have private health cover.

When I was 14, I had appendicitis, and couldn't move (we called the ambulance to come pick me up and move me so I wouldn't hurt myself, but they refused, even though we have some ambulance cover thingy. The ambulance service here is a whole OTHER story!) Anyway, mum eventually got me to the nearest hospital, and I had to wait about...45 minutes in the ER? During the 45 minutes though, the triage nurse did a few basic checks on me, to rule out some possibilities, so I at least got some treatment.

However, because my family has private health cover, in a public hospital you are very likely to get service like 70 times quicker. So, I suppose if I didn't have PHC, I'd be waiting there for a long time!

Anyways, I rate the local ER 9/10, because the staff involved were really nice and tried to minimalise everyone's waiting time.

I've never been to A&E for something serious.

But I've worked in the Accident & Emergency department of the hospital near me (and a local Minor Injuries department) and I think the systems pretty good, it's clean.. Okay, its sort of old-fashioned (floral curtains, blehh) - but on the ward it's lovely and new. They have these big white screens by the bed that patients can pull over and watch TV, listen to music, or call someone.

As for the waiting times, the priority system works well. When you see the receptionist woman, your name goes on a list and you're given a colour depending on the severity of the complaint. Obviously, severe accidents like stroke, heart attack and RTAs are top of the list and they get seen immediately as they're top priority. They'd be coloured red. The orange ones are things like fractures and acute illnesses. We aim to see and treat them within the hour. And then lastly it's things like cuts, bruises, sprains, check-ups, removing sutures, and other little niggles like that and those poor people have to just wait until its quiet which could be hours. It's quieter at about midday though, so thats the best time to go down with little things like that. Mornings is when a lot of elderly fall victims come in, and later into the day there are things like alcohol poisoning, more RTAs etc.

I wasn't allowed in resuss or the theatre Because apparently I'm too young to experience the traumas that happen there! Pfft!

Oh my God! Mine didn't get quite that bad, I got the pains at 2am on a Thursday morning, and they operated at 9pm that night. It didn't burst, but apparently it was all black and disgusting, they described it as acute appendicitis...so it must have been about to burst or something. They hooked me up to morphine, and that took away a lot of the pain...but they had hooked me up to an IV, and the drip was in a spot on my arm that pretty much locked it into place, and I couldn't move it...so by that night, my bloody arm was hurting more!

Did you get the traditional cut with just the one scar, or keyhole surgery?

I dunno WHERE you are, but I deeply resent that remark! Here our charity ('free') hospital is better staffed (the staff is better - there are as many as the other hospitals, but they're better humored and better overall), cleaner (for the most part - the building is OLD, we're talking at least 70 years old), and the doctors are AMAZING. We have three hospitals here: the charity hospital and it's associated clinics, Huey P. Long (HPL); Rapides Regional (RRMC), and St. Francis Cabrini Hospital, the Catholic public hospital (Cabrini). I've never been to Cabrini, but I have been to RRMC and HPL. Let me tell four stories.

I was 9 weeks pregnant with Miss Abbigail. I had vaginal bleeding and pain, and waited to go in to ER at RRMC until it was unbearable. Mom picked my boyfriend, who held my head in his lap until we got there. We checked in, I was made to pee in a cup, and we were then told to wait. Twelve hours, a picnic (no kidding - dad brought the dinner he was grilling for my brother to my mom, boyfriend and I!) and a screaming match between my boyfriend and a nurse later, I was in a room awaiting a doctor. Half an hour after that, amid hysterical tears, I was allowed an ultrasound to be sure I wasn't losing the baby. Four hours later, I was subjected to a pelvic exam and told it was a kidney infection and told to go home with antibiotics. The next morning, I arrived at my OB's office for my scheduled ultrasound and HE called ER to scream at them and demand to know why he was not informed that his patient was in ER the night before with a kidney infection. Total time in ER: 16 and a half hours.
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After Abbigail was born, and was still quite small, I had to take her to ER at RRMC for a fever because it was Saturday morning, about 2 AM. The nurses were RUDE. They told me I was a bad parent because I didn't bring her in prior to her running fever. They also told me that she was underweight and insinuated (they never came out and said it) that I didn't feed her. Some 14 hours later, I finally saw a doctor - who sent me home with her and told me 'Nothing is wrong with this child!' who at the time was running a fever of over 103. I brought her to her doctor, who admitted her. I won't tell you the story of pediatrics in that place - I could go on for DAYS. Wait time: 14 hours.
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When Abbigail was about 14 months old, I switched her primary care to HPL, because mom was singing the praises of the pediatrician my brother was seeing. She again spiked fever of over 102, and I took her to ER - the day before the 'official' switch was to take place. I did not know that it was not 'time' yet, and if I had, I wouldn't have cared. I waited about 10 minutes for the income screening (you get screened every time you're in), then I waited about 30 minutes to be triaged, and was put into a room within 20 minutes after that. I waited for this miracle worker mom had told me about for about an hour. He said 'There's something wrong with her, I'm sending her to lab'. He did, and it turned out she had her very first UTI. He said he wanted her in the clinic next day, and to this day he knows her name, medical history, and what tests he's ran on her without looking at her chart. Total Time: One hour, 50 minutes
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I broke and dislocated my toe at work one Sunday morning. I went home with much help and some vomiting from pain, and then on to HPL's ER because I don't have insurance. This was a workman's compensation claim because it was an on-the-job injury. I waited a grand total of an hour to be seen, waited 10 minutes in X-Ray, and waited about 30 minutes for painkillers to set in so they could reset the toe and tape it, waited 5 minutes for a boot, and was home within an hour and 45 minutes. Dr. Kelly (Abbi's pediatrician) does an ER rotation on weekends in case one of his comes in and to keep his skills sharp, and he saw me and I think that's why I was in and out so quick. Total Time: One hour, 45 minutes.

You do your own comparison. How is it that at RRMC I waited over 16 hours for vaginal bleeding WHILE I WAS PREGNANT, yet only waited an hour and 45 minutes for a broken and dislocated toe?!

RRMC: .5/10, 10 being phenomenal. The whole hospital is like that. And they treat Medicaid patients like utter garbage.
HPL: 7/10. It's not perfect - it tends to be packed, the nurses tend to be a little slow to triage, and it's an old building and as a result it's a little dirty looking. But the doctors are phenomenal, and the nurses are wonderful as well. By the time you get to a doctor, they all know your medical history. They are handwashing fanatics (something I never once saw at RRMC), and they don't care if you're a pay patient or a charity patient.

One more compare and contrast for you: Abbi's been hospitalized twice, once at RRMC, once at HPL.
RRMC: I didn't get fed. At all. I would wait a least a half hour for a nurse when I rang for them. When I asked for Pedialyte for Abbi, who had not taken anything by mouth for three days, I was told 'IT will have to wait, can't you see I'm BUSY?!'. There was no crib in the room they put us in, and they never brought us one. They did not care about my baby, she was just a number to them. She was 4 months old at the time.
HPL: I got a tray for every meal, and the nurses made vending machine runs for me. I waited 10 minutes at most for a nurse when I rang. I asked for popsicles or Jello, and they'd ask me how many, what kind, and since they had to call down to dietary for the Jello, if I wanted to wait or if I needed them to scrounge for some upstairs. I was given the choice of a crib or a bed, and was not chastised for having her sleep with me. They genuinely cared about Abbi, and wanted her to be better. She was two at this time.

So I don't know about you, but I'll pick HPL over the 'better' RRMC every time.

yeah they're kind of pooh here too. My husband and I took our then 5 week old daughter in because she had been screaming and crying bloody murder for four hours straight. Her pediatrician said we should take her in to check. Well we got there at 3 a.m., it took us about 45 minutes to be moved to the back (we were the only ones waiting), of about 8 rooms, 2 were being used (one had a crying child in there and I don't know about the other) then it took about another hour to hour and a half to be seen by the ER doc who told us she had gas and sent us on our way. we got home by 6a.m. 3 hours for some gas.