So today, my 7 month pregnant wife (who most of you know as DreamerGina in the IRC channel) started having sporadic sharp, stabbing pains in her lower abdomen. After about an hour or trying to contact our physician, during which she had several more spasms at increasingly short intervals, we got in the car and braved the icey roads to get to the emergency room at our preferred hospital, which is about a 15 minute drive away.

We get to the hospital, park outside the emergency room, trudge through the snow and ice that should have been shoveled off and wasn't for some reason, and reach the entrance.

It's closed. For remodeling. There's a sign pointing to a TUNNEL made of plywood and tin roofing that says 'enter through tunnel'. As we approach the entrance, two nurses are standing there smoking. No biggie, smoke if you want. However, the smoke is being drawn through this narrow, unventilated tunnel.

Thirty feet of narrow, dark, icy, smoke-filled tunnel later, we get to the entrance of the emergency room. We get to the desk and the lady behind the glass says "just one moment", turns around and walks off. She hands some paperwork to another patient, and waddles around picking up trash in the waiting room that some jackass left behind. Ten minutes later she asks us if she can help us. Good thing it wasn't actually an emergency, eh?

We explain what's happening, and she directs us to the maternity ward on the other side of the hospital. She offers to help us find it and gets a wheelchair for my wife, who is now having trouble walking. We wheel the wife over there, and check in at the maternity ward. We sign the papers saying "yeah, we'll pay for services rendered", and are shown to a room. The nurse takes the wife's blood pressure, hooks up some sensors to monitor the baby's heartrate and to check for contractions, then starts asking the classic questions: "what's wrong, how long, where, are you allergic to anything?" She says she'll call our doctor and get him right over.

Thirty minutes later she comes in and informs us that our Doc is delivering a baby at another hospital (wtf?) and he'll be over soon. The nurse says that she doesn't think anything is wrong, but will keep a close eye on the monitors while we wait.

Three hours later the nurse comes in and says that the doc's on his way from the other hospital. Three sporking hours of wondering what's going on, and just WAITING as my wife is in pain.

Doc finially shows up, sticks his hand in my wife's vagina and has her pee in a cup. No introduction. No "what's wrong". No nothing. Just "spread 'em and fill this cup, k?" We never see him again.

Nurse comes back an hour later and says that nothing's wrong. Wife's just having Braxton-Hick's contractions (practice contractions) and has a stretched ligament. Just "go home, rest, and drink plenty of water."

There was no comfort, no attempt at an explanation to make a scared mother and a worried father feel better. No decent explanation as to what "Braxton-Hick's contractions are", I had to sporking look it up when we got home. Just a waste of four sporking hours, for nothing.

And the really sad part?
This is still better than we were treated at the hospital closer to us.

Yeah. And we didn't even get a 'hello, I'm Dr. X" from the doc.

Just take off your pants, spread 'em, now pee in a cup.

Oi. This is not the 1st time I've heard of such a thing. I'll tell you about my experience, but 1st, I'm glad to hear that Gina is ok. *hugs you both* I shall relay this to my mother, who is an RN on labor and delivery. She'll be able to tell you more about everything birth related. So if you have any questions other than what "Braxton-Hick's" is, lemme know. I'll ask her for ya.

As I said before, this isn't the 1st time I've heard about crappy ER treatment. Not only have I heard about it from other ppl, but I've been through it myself. Sooooo ... here's my trial ...

I was at work. Just doing my job. At the time I was working on the register and then out of nowhere ... very very sharp chest pains. It was getting hard for me to breathe. Thinking it would pass, I continued to work. An hour passed and it was getting worse. At times, it felt like I was going to pass out. So, finally, I decided to have somebody drive me to the hospital, fearing I could pass out while at the wheel.

My co-worker drops me off at the ER, asking if I wanted him to stay. Which, I told him no, I'd be fine. So I get there, and I'm still having a hard time breathing w/ really really sharp pains. The receptionist is asking me what's wrong and such. I at this point in time, can't talk b/c I can barely breathe I'm in so much pain. She asks me for my insurance and sees that I'm a minor. My parents, were out of town. They couldn't admit me until they got parental consent. My parents were in a park at a family reunion, unreachable by phone. So, I sat there and waited. They finally got a hold of my uncle, who told them that it was ok, and they'd try and continue to get a hold of my parents.

They ran test after test after test. Chest x-rays, heart monitor, EKG, etc. I was having the same symptoms as a heartattack patient. The doctor comes in and talks to me. Asks me if I'm pregnant, if I'm on drugs. I tell her no, there's no way for either of them to be possible. She draws blood anyways. 3 hours later, they get a hold of my parents, who are now on their way. One of my friends in the waiting room leaves a note for me saying that she talked to my mother. The doctor told her that if they didn't come pick me up, they were sending me to the pysch ward. Turns out, I was a 'typical teenager having a panic attack for attention.' Parents come pick me up, and I'm finally out of the ER, 8 hours later.

So now, I've got a mandatory appt to see a shrink in 2 days. WTF. My mom asked me all about it and thought it was weird, as I was still in pain, knowing I had no tendencies for such as was presumed. Well, I got a call in the morning from the hospital saying that I needed to come in immediately. Get there, and they take more chest x-rays. Turns out, my lung collapsed. What's bad ? My mom took one look at that and went, "my god, how did she miss that ?" My lung was still somewhat deflated at that time the next morning. What's worse ? If my lung had deflated another 2%, I could have died. Luckily for me, the hole in my lung sealed back up and it reinflated in time. What's even better ? The doctor calls that day and apologized to MY MOTHER. F*CK YOU !

So I know how it feels to be given the shaft in the ER room. I sympathize greatly. Sth tells me that the efficiency of the ER should be improved upon greatly. It's stressful enough to go to the ER as it is ... on top of having to go through all that crap you guys did. It's bullshit, and sth needs to be changed. If I hear one more story like this, especially about one of my friends, oh boy. The sad part is, that it's only seeming to get worse, and not better. *shakes her head in disgust* *hugs again*

Hey, I'm still here, and so are you guys, so it's all good.

Oh yeah, I forgot a little light on the subject. They cancelled my shrink appt. *snickers* I may be crazy, but I don't need therapy thank you !

oh and heres the kicker w/ our current president(bush). he wants to RESTRICT people from being able to file malpractice suits!!

keep in mind hospitals having to insure themselfs against beefy law suits  is one of the contributing factors to the rising cost of heathcare so dont assume being able to sue medical organizations into bankruptcy will help to improve the quality of heathcare.

Phoneix, they already have restricted malpractice settlements in Canada, in fact all of them go through the government, and I had to wait 8 hours in Triage before

Restricting Settlements may help something, but ultimately inefficient hospital bureacracy as well as the inability to properly allocate government funding (lack of funding by default) that is the real reason why the quality of healthcare has dropped

in belgium , you pay money for it every month or so , but when you need an operation , its completely refund to ya .

this means that if you dont ever need an operation or anything in your life , you have payed a lot of  money for something you didnt got .


But , if your young , like evereone here on the forum ( I think )
and you dont have to much money at hand , you would still be able to pay for the operation .

(also , for con ) every child here gets you money )
first child = 75$ a month
second child 10$ a month or something and so on , so on .....

Two-Tier Healthcare scares me, just as it does most (with the exception of the extremely rich) Canadians. Since the second you put it in the quality of the public service goes down the crapper.

/.start angry rant

My great objection is to mismanagement of funds by the government, its not that we all pay for health care, it's that we all overpay for it and continue to underfund it because the government is busy buying new jets for themselves or doing research on the effects of monkey semen in drinking water. The only people who should be poor in society are politicians (I say this as a Poli Sci/Sociology Major), since anyone with this magnitude of budgeting problems shouldn't be allowed to handle money. But then, Canada is also a dictatorship, oh well

/.end angry rant