Scary night last night....

Last night my oldest daughter came into my room crying and told m to look in her toilet. Why? She had been throwing up bright red looked like arterial blood. Oooooookay..... The local Ambulance service would take 15 minutes to get here minimum, they would then take 10-30 minutes to get her vitals prepare to transport yadda yadda yadda. They would take her to the small hospital about 18 miles away as they take EVERYONE there unless it's life threatenting. If it was a bleeding ulcer the local hospital doesn't have a way to GI Tube her to check it, meaning they would have to transfer her to the children hospital in Corpus 40 miles further away, after waiting for another ambulance to come from the local ambulance district, not the district we would have started out in. So to shortcut all that I loaded her up in the suburban, and drove her the 45 miles to Children's Hospital myself. It's normally about 50 minutes to an hour drive, I made it in about 30 minutes, remember I used to drive ambulances so I know how to drive fast safely, even though I normally drive slow. When we arrived at the Children's Hospital it being a typical friday night the ED was packed. I signed in at triage and since my daughter was coughing rather badly I asked the triage nurse for a mask for her as I didn't know if she might be infectious. When they called us up I gave the explanation of what was going on, while we were doing that 3 ambulances pulled in, only one patient was brought in though. I thought we would have had a long wait to be called back. Nope. I called to the admit window right away and got her paperwork taken care of and within 10 minutes she was in a room. Now I thought we'd be taken care of rather quickly, well the vagaries of the ED meant no. there were 2 children who needed a little bit more help than we did evidently. And it was an hour before a nurse came in to even take her temp again, which had risen another degree since we had arrived. Finally we had some attention. Blood FINALLY drawn, a warmed blanket as she was shivering rather badly, temp taken again up another tenth of a degree, another 30 minutes until the Dr came in and examined her. He palpated her abdomen, then ordered X-Rays and an IV. Took her upstairs for the X-Rays, then brought her down for the IV to be put in. Another hour had passed. We sat and watched the Hannah Montana DVD for the 3rd time while she took in 1/2 a liter of saline. Nurse came in, and we went back up for another X-ray. Another 45 minutes, the DR came in and said the she had the flu, and could go home. The blood she had thrown up was from a bloody nose she had. 5:00 am, we had spent 4 and half hours most of it waiting for a nurse or a Dr. then we were sent home with a scrip for Zantac, told to keep her hydrated and in bed.

When we arrived at the hospital I did a head count of the Nurses, Dr's and Physician Assitants in the ED. 7 nurses, 2 Dr's and 2 PA's. why with all that staff did it take so long to get help for my daughter? I used to drive an ambulance and was an EMT-D in Missouri, working with the VFD and a local Ambulance Company. I know that an ED can be backed up, but over an hour to just check on a patient? and I had to hunt down the Nurse, who stood there talking to another nurse about her date the previous night while I stood there for 3 minutes waiting for her to "Notice" me. Or the Dr, who was charting a patient while he talked about what he had for dinner for over 20 minutes while I stood there shifting from foot to foot. there really needs to be something done, but I know I'm not qualified to do it.

Mark