RedHatty - Hospital Visit without oil

So as I was riding last week, A person who could still afford to drive a car apparently decided that because they could pay for the fuel, they owned the roads & well, to save my life I made some quick maneuvers and went el-smacko into a street sign - right on the forehead.  I didn't think much of it, figured nothing hurt but my pride until Sunday.  You see the smack became a bump, which became a festering wound, an abscess, so I figured I had to get to the doc, I called my doc & he said - go to the ER (great!)  So, I catch 3 buses and walk 5 blocks with a face swollen like something out of star trek to get to the ER.

Well it's obvious that with so many people out of work, the ERs have gotten really busy here, so I figure I am going to be there a while & try to settle in.  Now before the oil crisis, you would anticipate seeing at least 1 ambulance arrive during a 2 hour wait, right?  Not anymore.  Not one ambulance while I was waiting to go back - strange.

Later when I was in back & getting treated, I was noticing some strange changes (good for me, but still strange) as the nurse started an IV line, she also used that puncture to draw a ton of blood into syringes.  I thanked her for only sticking me once & she confided that it wasn't out of kindness, they are trying to control the use of supplies (sharps and such) since they can't be positive when more will come in.  WOW!

Also the machines they would normally run - O2 meter, BP ever so many minutes, they didn't even turn them on.  They even used just the drip chamber in the IV, no machine to control the flow!  I was asked to keep the lights off unless a medical professional was in the room.  Now I understand the need for conservation, but in the hospital ER?  WOW.  

Anyway, After about 6 hours there, with a lanced abscess filled with packing, a couple percosets in me & a script for Bactrim, I set off the do the return trip home.  Only 1 change, I have to stop at the pharmacy (remember, I still work for a drug store chain) to fill the script.  

Now I am not normally ill, I take no regular meds, so the changing cost of medications is not something that effects me directly, I just see it in our EOM statements usually.  But one of the perks of the job is that we pay next to nothing (at least used to) for meds, especially generic meds.  Oh yeah and if you are wondering what happened to me to get the abscess, well it's "community acquired MRSA"  Something very common here in New Orleans post Katrina.

So I go into one of my stores to fill the script & present all my required employee identifiers for the perk discounts & when I check out the cashier says "That will be $42.80"  I was shocked - I asked her, Didn't you enter my employee discount in?  She says, yes I did, Sorry but that's the price AFTER the discount - for a lousy 14 pills that would have cost $1.80 3 month's ago.

After seeing that, I am all of a sudden afraid to see how much my medical insurance will no longer cover.  How much will that ER visit put me back, especially now, when every penny is so precious, as everything is so expensive.

On a side note, I overheard an exchange from an ambulance to the ER while I was there.  Apparently a young child was seriously injured in an accident (no details of the accident).  The hospital I was in is the one that was the closest to the scene, but the parent of the child was insisting that the child be brought to Children's Hospital (an excellent hospital here)  The ER dispatcher was going over the list of forms that the parent needed to sign for the ambulance to do the transport - including a fuel charge form!!!  Now you KNOW there is no insurance policy that is going to cover that one.

I wish I had a hospital closer to home, but I don't & I don't want to live where the hospitals are - there's no place to grow stuff.

Current Mood: sore