An Open Letter to Emergency Rooms Everywhere

This has been a long time a comin’.

In mid April, I had gone to eat dinner with my friend. After dinner, I went home and I started to feel sick. That night around 11 am, I started throwing up and feeling really hot. I didn’t know what to do, so I just lay in my bed and tried to drink water and make myself feel better. Around 4 am the next morning, I was still throwing up. At this point, I couldn’t take it anymore, so I woke up my apartment mate and called my mom. I told them both that I wanted to go to the hospital because I felt like death. So, at around 5 am, my apartment mate took me to St. Peter’s University Hospital because we lived three blocks away from it. And this was one of the worst experiences of my life. I would like to note, that I have never needed to go to an ER, let alone, a hospital before, so I wasn’t sure of what to expect.

At Saint Peter’s Hospital:

When my friend and I entered the ER, the first thing I had to do was fill out forms, which was easy enough. After that, we were in the waiting room for about 10-15 minutes. After the wait, the nurse took me to Triage so she could take my temperature, blood pressure, etc. In triage, I threw up and the nurse was so mean about it. First, she didn’t even get me a bucket to throw up in; my friend got me the bucket! And then, she pretty much blamed me for throwing up. She said something similar to “if you just breathe more slowly, you wouldn’t need to throw up.” Great, that’s exactly what I need to hear after a whole night of food poisoning. While in triage, the nurse was going so slow with whatever she was doing, but finally I was admitted to the ER. Once I was there, a nurse came to give me a gown to change into and all that stuff. I was still feeling extremely sick and hot while I was in the bed and all I wanted was to see the doctor. The nurse said I was the next patient for him to see and that he’d be there within 10-15 minutes. The nurse was very judgmental and I could tell that she thought it was my fault that I was sick. She kept asking me what I had done that would make me get so sick – I think she thought I was just a stupid college student that had drank too much, but in fact I had food poisoning. I had not drunk at all that whole week, but I did eat. Sorry nurse, I didn’t know that it was so shameful of me to eat dinner. The time went by and still no doctor. I asked my friend to ask the nurse what was taking the doctor so long, but we couldn’t even track her down. Finally, after about 25 minutes the nurse came back and said the doctor would be in shortly. And then once again, after another 10-15 minute wait, I couldn’t handle it anymore and my friend asked when the doctor was going to come. This time she went to the nurse, and she could even see the doctor. The doctor was not with a patient but on his computer. And, when she asked when the doctor would see me, she had to ask the nurse, who would then ask the doctor – even though all three people were in the same room! The asshole doctor wouldn’t just answer my friend directly, but had to be arrogant and make the nurse do it for him. Another 15 minutes went by and I still wasn’t being helped. The whole time I was waiting I kept thinking of all those horror stories I saw on the news about patients who died in the ER because the staff neglected them. I didn’t want to be one of those stories. (Now, I realize I was overreacting, but at the time I had felt like death. I spent the whole night vomiting.) And once again, my friend saw the doctor on his computer, not doing anything! My parents finally made it to the hospital, and even then I wasn’t being helped (they live over an hour away from the school, so that means I was in the ER not being helped for over an hour.) When they saw I wasn’t being helped, they told me to get dressed and we went to another hospital. In summary: the nurse came to check on me only three times in over an hour waiting time , I had thrown up about SEVEN times while in the hospital bed (two of the times, the nurse saw me throw up)and still no doctor had helped me. And the hospital was not even busy, I had only seen/heard one patient while there and my friend walked around and only saw about 3 patients – all who were already helped.

At Monmouth Medical Center:

After my parent’s took me out of Saint Peter’s they brought me to my hometown hospital, Monmouth Medical Center. Here, I was helped at once by the doctor. There was one problem though –the nurse couldn’t get the IV into my veins. The nurse said I had become so dehydrated that she could not find my veins. My dad was getting pissed because the nurse kept sticking my veins and not getting the IV in me. The nurse had tried five times and still couldn’t do it. So that’s when my dad asked for another nurse because he didn’t like that she couldn’t do her job. The nurse was really mad my dad said that and started a scene. And she started to complain about my dad to the staff. Eventually, my dad did get a new nurse, and she got the IV in me within two tries. (Woo-hoo, I got stuck SEVEN times within 20 minutes.) Lesson learned: My dad was right; the first nurse had no idea how to put an IV in. And the whole time this happened, I was crying and delirious and to the point of passing out -real fun times. Once the IV and anti nausea pills were in me, I felt better immediately. But since the doctor didn’t know what was wrong with me, she wanted to do a CAT scan to make sure I didn’t have appendicitis or something wrong with my gall bladder. From here on, the visit to the hospital was smooth. The staff was nice and helpful and checked on me a lot. The only thing I felt weird about was that they wanted to give me morphine for food poisoning. When did they start giving out morphine for stuff like that? I didn’t take it because I was already feeling better, so there was no point. But still, morphine? For food poisoning? I don’t think so, at least not for me. The highlight of the hospital visit was the CAT scan because the doctor in charge of that was really cute and funny. Yes, even when I’m weak I still notice the cute ones.

All in all, I learned to NEVER go to Saint Peter’s University Hospital. That is the worst hospital ever – never go there! Monmouth Medical Center was better – except the crazy nurse who stuck me for no reason. And, I was very lucky that this food poisoning event happened in April because I turned 22 in May – which means no more medical insurance.

I had thrown up over 15 times in one night and got stuck with a needle seven times. This was really a crazy experience for me, but I know a lot of you won’t think this is too bad after hearing more horror hospital stories from the news or friends. But this was my first time ever in a hospital, so I was freaked out!

After my visit, I started to do a little research on emergency rooms. I was disheartened to learn that emergency wait times had gone up over time. I was shocked because I had to wait over an hour for a doctor to see me, but in fact that is the AVERAGE wait time for an ER now. I think this is awful. The ER is supposed to be there for people who need medical help immediately, it should not take that long for a doctor to see someone in the ER. For the amount of money a person pays for the ER, they should be able to get help ASAP. But, I think the wait time would be solved if another problem was taken care of – the lack of space. Many ER staffs say that they don’t have enough rooms and space to give patients sufficient care, and this leads to a longer wait line for ER patients. Another problem is the staff’s attitude. Many of the doctors and nurses have become jaded from dealing with the same patient problems day after day, so they don’t have the same compassion they once had. I guess another factor that leads to a bad ER environment is their budget. I’m not too sure how much it costs to run an ER but I’m sure it’s a lot.

What do you think about the ER and hospital problems?