What was the MOST ridiculous thing a patient came to the ER for?

Specialties Emergency Nursing Q/A

And did you have to treat them?

I am just curious. Your stories always seem to either crack me up or shake my head in amazement.

Thanks for sharing ?

Specializes in Pediatric Pulmonology and Allergy.
not since 1998 when EMTALA was put into law. My solution for the healthcare crisis..... abolish EMTALA

No, not a solution. EMTALA is meant to enable access to the ER for people who are in true need. If there was better gatekeeping at triage to keep the non-sick (let alone non-emergent) out of the ER this would be much less of an issue.

Specializes in Emergency.
No, not a solution. EMTALA is meant to enable access to the ER for people who are in true need. If there was better gatekeeping at triage to keep the non-sick (let alone non-emergent) out of the ER this would be much less of an issue.

An RN cannot "gatekeep" at triage because under EMTALA all pts presenting get a medical exam by an MD. Without EMTALA EDs could operate properly, as in caring for the sickest first and immediately in order to protect the MDs licenses and prevent being sued. We don't need EMTALA for this. EMTALA guarantees all private pay and indigent pts abuse the system daily. Anyone who doesn't see this needs to volunteer where I work for a week. Without EMTALA, the ED would be used appropriately and the dept could appropriately care for ALL presenting pts because no one would abuse the system. People may even pick up the phone and (gasp) call a PCP! They may not come to the ER for runny noses (gasp)! They may not come, even if they puked once (egad)! Also, making no attempt to pay your health care bills should be a felony.

Specializes in ER.
An RN cannot "gatekeep" at triage because under EMTALA all pts presenting get a medical exam by an MD. Without EMTALA EDs could operate properly, as in caring for the sickest first and immediately in order to protect the MDs licenses and prevent being sued. We don't need EMTALA for this. EMTALA guarantees all private pay and indigent pts abuse the system daily. Anyone who doesn't see this needs to volunteer where I work for a week. Without EMTALA, the ED would be used appropriately and the dept could appropriately care for ALL presenting pts because no one would abuse the system. People may even pick up the phone and (gasp) call a PCP! They may not come to the ER for runny noses (gasp)! They may not come, even if they puked once (egad)! Also, making no attempt to pay your health care bills should be a felony.

They also should have a policeman out at all times to catch the "patients" who are driving to the ER under the influence of drugs. I have no tolerance for people driving up to the ER after (they've already been to the one down the road probably) then to test them and find they're positive for all kinds of benzos, opiates, etc...Nothing I can do about it, but just like an alcoholic may bar hop, they ER hop..

( I know this may be a little off topic, but it goes with abuse of the system I think)

Also, making no attempt to pay your health care bills should be a felony.

I know of a married couple who are not allowed to own property for 10 years because of unpaid medical bills, and I suspect this is why.

As for women coming to the ER for a pregnancy test, I've said this before but I wonder if some of them do this because they think they can get an abortion at the ER.

Mosquito bites, spider bites, spinach scares.....what about the BATS!! One person comes in with a possible bat bite, the newspaper runs a story about a bat that bit someone and was caught (the bat, not the person..lol) and tested positive for rabies and OMG.....how many jumped on that bandwagon! And....how many got treated and probably never did their follow-up...why, you might ask? Well, since you asked, I'll tell you...because we are a NOT FOR PROFIT hospital and we turn down no one. We are the only hospital in town and we get it all. I wonder how many of our non-paying customers even batted an eye at the thousands of dollars we spent on all those treatments. The hospital is so "customer satisfaction" oriented, until they developed a protocol. Since bat bites may not be visible due to the miniscule size of the bite, if someone feels that they may have been bitten by a bat, they automatically get the 2-step treatment. grrrrrrrr... there goes my raise..

any thoughts on this?

I heard of a man who killed a bat and was looking at the dead bat poking around its mouth and stuff. The bat had rabies and the man got rabies just from the saliva and no bite.

Specializes in ER.
OK - dumb question - I understand that you can't refuse to treat someone in the emergency room. Can you refuse to see an obvious non-emergency like the hangnail?

You technically cant refuse to treat it..but then again, how do you?? Most hopspitals may want money up front for stupid crap like that though.

bras (new ones) are available through the salvation army, associated charaties, many woman's charities,

just to name a few places. sources like the the welfare board, food pantries have lists of who in a given area handles such clothing issues. if this mystery patient's only bra had had to be cut off in many hospitals, they would have had resources for her to visit.

as a previous poster pointed out, having to request a new bra was a nonissue, compared to having a potentially life-threatening problem go untreated.

people get upset over oddball things frequently, but what they rant, rave and complain about usually isn't what they're really bent out of shape over.

kathy

shar pei mom:paw::paw:

i know it isn't you that posted the offensive comment but nevertheless...

i was a paramedic before i was a rn and i have cut clothes off of trauma victims. i get that. but why would a nurse think cutting a patients only bra off would be funny and post that in this thread?

several months ago i had to go to the ed and radiology was wheeling my stretcher to take some xrays and my shoes fell off the stretcher and they even ran over one of them and if i had not protested they would have left my shoes lying in the hallway. i guess they thought the rn would pick them up? i dunno.

I know it isn't you that posted the offensive comment but nevertheless...

I was a paramedic before I was a RN and I have cut clothes off of trauma victims. I get that. But why would a nurse think cutting a patients only bra off would be FUNNY and post that in this thread?

Several months ago I had to go to the ED and radiology was wheeling my stretcher to take some xrays and my shoes fell off the stretcher and they even ran over one of them and if I had not protested they would have left my shoes lying in the hallway. I guess they thought the RN would pick them up? I dunno.

i think you are mis understanding this thread....it is a vent thread.....the person who posted about cutting off the bra wasnt laughing at the cutting, but more nearly "shaking her head" at the thought it was more important than the patients life....

Specializes in ortho, hospice volunteer, psych,.
bras (new ones) are available through the salvation army, associated charities, many woman's charities,

just to name a few places. sources like the the welfare board, food pantries have lists of who in a given area handles such clothing issues. if this mystery patients only bra had had to be cut off in many hospitals, they would have had resources for her to visit.

as a previous poster pointed out, having to request a new bra was a non issue, compared to having a potentially life-threatening problem go untreated.

people get upset over oddball things frequently, but what they rant, rave and complain about usually isn't what they're really bent out of shape over.

kathy

shar pei mom:paw::paw:

i know it isn't you that posted the offensive comment but nevertheless...

i was a paramedic before i was a rn and i have cut clothes off of trauma victims. i get that. but why would a nurse think cutting a patients only bra off would be funny and post that in this thread?

several months ago i had to go to the ed and radiology was wheeling my stretcher to take some x rays and my shoes fell off the stretcher and they even ran over one of them and if i had not protested they would have left my shoes lying in the hallway. i guess they thought the rn would pick them up? i dunno.

just curious omg, if you knew that i am not the person who posted the allegedly offensive comment,

why, pray tell, did you direct your ill feelings toward me? i was merely stating my opinion on a public forum and basing it on facts gained through personal observation, experience and sitting on many agency

advisory boards. no one on here who read the thread thought the bra cutting was "funny" but the consensus was simply that patients sometimes don't realize that sometimes saving a life becomes more important than an article of clothing. the patient's bra was in a different category than your shoe. the person who ran over your shoe was a jerk while the bra cutter was merely doing his/her job.

i think you are misunderstanding this thread....it is a vent thread.....the person who posted about cutting off the bra wasn't laughing at the cutting, but more nearly "shaking her head" at the thought it was more important than the patients life....

thank you, morte! if we didn't all share our experiences and vent sometimes, we'd all either be in little rubber rooms (without our bras) or explode...

omg, please stick around and get to know us better because we're not a bad bunch.

kathy

shar pei mom:paw::paw:

I took care of a woman who called EMS after having a "really bad nightmare."

After talking to her a bit while I did my assessment, I discovered that she was having a lot of anxiety issues related to her "moving out of my apartment." But, just for a bit of perspective, she wasn't having financial issues, wasn't having to move to a bad neighborhood, wasn't moving out of state, just making your average, everyday, move from one apartment to another.

We gave her some PO ativan and sent her back to home to continue packing.

Specializes in ER, ICU, PACU, Corrections, cardiac.

How about the patient who had a tubal ligation on Monday (the usual labs including negative pregnancy test were done), did a home preg test on Wednesday because "she had it anyway", it came back positive so she came to ER insisting on a blood test.

Well, there's a lot of truth to what you say, but the really sad thing is that an awful lot of these people just don't have a primary physician, and this is their only entry into the health care system. We have all these ridiculous things being brought to the ER, and we also have the people coming in who should have had medical treatment long ago, but have no MD and no insurance and no $ for health care.. Pretty sad state of affairs.

Savvy

Sad but true... if u don't have insurance or primary physician where do u go to? public clinics? you're lucky if they will schedule u within a month.

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