Why o why do ER waiting rooms have to be SO darned uncomfortable! :chuckle
Okay, bear with me for a just a second. Yeah, I know some folks (a lot of folks, even) are actually stupid enough to come in to watch TV (amusing thread, but I vote for TVs) and try to score drugs, so on and so forth. I can't speak to that problem, or solve it for ya. But think for a moment.....even in inner city ER's I'd be willing to be that the VAST majority of patients are there because they're either injured, or genuinely ill and need to be seen and treated, right? Can we all agree on that?
My beef is this.......it seems that NO hospital waiting room (ER or otherwise) has any place to lie down and get reasonably comfortable. Eh, naturally you don't want folks to CAMP OUT in your ER waiting room, but some folks really are more comfortable on their sides. I was laid up with a kidney infection AND the second time around a prostate infection, both times I simply could not tolerate being seated for more than a few minutes. I didn't want to lie down on the floor for obvious reasons. But almost all the chairs were those infamous thinly padded '70s styled affairs with arm rests in between. Only on the ends of a couple sets did a pair of seats not have an armrest, and it was there that I waited my turn (2 hours and 90 minutes respectively) to be called. I also noticed a couple other folks in distress and suspect they would have been more comfortable lying down. You'd THINK there would be a reasonable, modest solution to this?
Along a similar vein....my dad was hospitalized for about 5 months all told, 4 of them in ICU due to massive unknown infection, heart attack #2 thrown in, and numerous complications (he returned home minus 10 toes) in the first half of 2002 up in Topeka. I spent most all of January in the ICU waiting room along with various family members, frequently staying all night, at least one family member sleeping folded up in a too-short loveseat. Then I would spend weekends zipping up to Topeka from Springfield. It was a long spring, that year. Waiting rooms have a strange culture all their own, but that's another story for another thread :)
sometimes, i dont understand why family members have to spend every single second with their ill family member, and sit there for days. GO THE F&*K HOME and lay down there if you dont like the seating. Nothing will be as comfortable as your own bed. Dont get me wrong, if the family member is really sick or has a life threatening condition, by all means, stay. but the 10 family members waiting for plastics to suture a 1cm face lac can go mind their own business and come back to pick up the person when they are done.
Does anyone think that people are JUST TOO NOSEY these days?
I tell patients all the time. "this isnt the waldorff astoria, thats on the other side of town."
TraumaInTheSlot
85 Posts
sometimes, i dont understand why family members have to spend every single second with their ill family member, and sit there for days. GO THE F&*K HOME and lay down there if you dont like the seating. Nothing will be as comfortable as your own bed. Dont get me wrong, if the family member is really sick or has a life threatening condition, by all means, stay. but the 10 family members waiting for plastics to suture a 1cm face lac can go mind their own business and come back to pick up the person when they are done.
Does anyone think that people are JUST TOO NOSEY these days?
I tell patients all the time. "this isnt the waldorff astoria, thats on the other side of town."