A Lighter View
How to define emergency
By K.E.H. Stagg

Jan. 15, 2009

Having just recently spent time in the emergency room, I had ample time to think about how many people in the mid-state define the term. According to all popular understanding of the word, “emergency” by definition is something critical and urgent. As regards to health, most of us understand this to mean a situation or event that can’t be cared for at home or with medicines available from the local pharmacy. Therefore, it’s not surprising to find in an emergency room those suffering from heart attacks, gunshot wounds, and the inability to keep fluids inside where they belong.

What we don’t expect to find is people with colds, or with upset stomachs that aren’t tender to the touch and have no symptoms other than that they’ve been going on for a month or more and incidentally there’s a big test at school tomorrow that the patient didn’t study for. Hmmm. Emergencies? I don’t think so.

But what I didn’t expect to find and was pleasantly surprised by, was the solicitous attention given by the staff who had to have been bored half out of their minds from taking information about the so-called emergencies that were waiting for triage and medical consultations.

While racked out on a string of chairs, attempting to neither groan nor heave the contents of a long-empty stomach into a plastic wastebasket toted along for just such a purpose, I was almost amazed to hear through a sleepy stupor that the staff offered me the use of a blanket to stave off the cold being let in by someone’s child who wanted to know just how far he could get from the door and still set off the sensor that would open it automatically.

I was also thinking how dangerous emergency rooms are for the ill. I mean, you’re there because you’re in dire straights in the first place, and then there are all these other people hacking their germs all over the place, or spewing them onto the floor, and now we’re all infected with whatever they’ve brought in with them. It’s not that I think they should be hosed down with Lysol upon admission, but that’s not entirely a bad idea. In fact, it might be worth looking into! But I digress.

The emergency room is far too busy a place offering care to the critically ill to be bothered with trifling colds and indigestion. If it’s pneumonia, fine; or a walloping case of intestinal flu, no arguments there either. But those of you whose doctors offices don’t keep convenient hours, for the love of God! Find a new practice. Those of us waiting in the emergency room with REAL health problems can’t afford for you to hog up the time and space of the medical profession on whose behalf I thank you for leaving the ER for the exclusive use of true emergencies!