you said utah and nyc came in "dead last"

what hospitals are you people going to?

the most I've waited in the ER waiting room was an hour. Friday drunk night is obviously more of a wait from sex and the city girls coming in. let's see, saint patrick's day it was busy, too.

Now, getting a room after the ER visit is a different story, I didn't get a room until 2am, saw the ER docs at 7pm.

I went to NYU Tisch ER twice and the Park Slope (on 7th ave near Smiling Pizza / B&N) ER once. The Park Slope one is the one that took the longest.

I know people who have gone to Lenox Hill, however, and have been seen in 15 minutes. Also, despite the fact that the Fort Greene hospital is super-broke and depressing, I have a friend who went there and was seen in about 45 minutes, so maybe I'm just unlucky with ERs.

On Friday night i spent 10 hours in the emergency room at Mt Sinai in Astoria with severe abdominal pains. After giving 3 different doctors the same story, I waited for 8 hours to receive a CT scan and 2 Tylenol, and was released with 'unknown abdominal pain'. They also tried to prescribe me a wide-spectrum antibiotic that I had told all three of them that I was already on. This is what needs to be fixed in our system. It is simply unacceptable.

Those Queens hospitals are the worst right now. The Caritas health care network was shot down last year and took a number of ERs with it. Volume is up all over Queens ERs. Mount Sinai is just one of many hospitals that have applied to the state to increase their ER capacity.

Just an aside, in case you're wondering, up until a year or two ago, you know what Medicaid paid the doctor for an office visit? Eleven dollars. Know what they paid if the doctor saw them in a clinic? Six dollars. If a Medicaid patient was in the ICU for a month with some horrible, complex, life-threatening illness? Six dollars a day. But hospitals get paid much better, charge for every Bandaid & Tylenol. And that has also been the reason that most Docs don't accept Medicaid. And there's so much fraud, it's unbeleivable. A lot of the folks with Medicaid (not all, everyone can fall on hard times, have a catastrophic illness) just don't care if you wait while they take an ambulance to the ER for menstrual cramps or a toothache. Then they yell that they want an ambulette to take them back to the projects. Nature of the beast, nature of the system.

I've been to the ER 3 times over the last 10 years. The first time I waited 7.5 hours after getting stabbed in the hand (they cleaned it in the first 10 minutes and then I sat and waited); the second time, I waited 3.5 hours with a 102 degree fever, sever dehydration and flu (I tried for 2 days to "wait it out" unsuccessfully); the third time I waited 3 hours after splitting my chin open from falling. In the two cases which required stitching (1 and 3), I waited so long that the cuts sealed closed and had to be "re-opened" to be sewn up properly - not fun.

In all of the cases, 95% of the other people there looked like they were waiting for the bus, with no apparent illness. The problem is that idiots clog the ERs with non-emergencies, making it impossible for people who are actually sick to get seen in a reasonable amount of time. Maybe many of these people are really sick, but it's hard to tell, and doctors have to waste time on evaluating people who should be going to the doctor.

I had staff infection once as well but made an appt 2 days later with my doctor and waited and suffered in the meantime; seemed easier than going to the ER, waiting for 6 hours and then being charged $2000 for a 5 second appointment.

Many people who use Medicaid never bother to pay their copayments and use ambulances as taxi service. There is no deterrent to using the ER as primary care. If the state and city would withhold their salaries / public assistance if a visit were deemed non-emergency, it would be a different story. NYC ER physicians make less than suburban counterparts and subject themselves to much more dangerous situations and patients; don't know why one would choose to work here.

when i went to the ER last year because of some strange neck/mouth muscle spasm where i felt like i couldn't breathe, couldn't swallow and was in a ton of pain i waited for around 4 or 5 hours just to get the muscle relaxants/painkillers that solved the problem within like 10 minutes. so frustrating

Getting in an ambulance in Manhattan seems like a good way to die. I can't count the number of times I've been walking up 6th Ave and seen ambulances, lights and sirens blaring, stuck in traffic, not moving at all. Other drivers will try to move out of the way and they just can't, there's no room.

Another good argument for dedicated bus and emergency vehicle lanes separated from general traffic lanes with physical barriers, as they have done in Paris.

everyday they dont never come correct...

wait - what is this Jaya Saxena???

Health care reform must include a provision penalizing Medicaid recipients for using ERs like GPs.

I have heard that there is a good reason for this current reality arising from Medicaid rules (but can't recall the details). Nevertheless, perhaps ERs can be redesigned so there is a 24/7 nurse staffed clinic that can take the flu or bruises/breaks/stitches patients.

Malpractice reform would also work - but I am not that much of an optimist.

Bloomberg is a complete failure