-=> Rob Mccart wrote to SEAN DENNIS <=-

 RM> That's not good.. My few experiences here have shown the odd time
 RM> when the hospital was low on staff and waits were longer than ideal
 RM> but you could tell the people were woking their tails off to try
 RM> to do the best they could.

That night I mentioned, the male nurse showed me how to turn off my IV
infusion device if it ran out of fluid in the IV bag.  I'd then roll out in my
wheelchair and wait outside the room to let him know my IV was finished.

A year or so later, I was back there again when I had my second saddle
pulmonary embolism.  There were plenty of nurses on that ward but I tried to
be a low-maintenance patient.  I was oddly released on a Sunday evening (I was
doing well and they were short beds) but the night before, the nurses were
going to Taco Bell and bought me dinner as I was not on any dietary
resterictions at that time.  I greatly appreciated that gesture.

 RM> The thing that gets me, and maybe it's just on TV shows and not
 RM> the usual case, but you hear about hospitals in the USA charging
 RM> patients $15 for an aspirin or something 

That's real.  The VA charges me co-pays from $8 to $24 on medications.
However, my primary care doctor will send eligible prescriptions to the
Walgreens just down the road from me (20 minutes by scooter one way) and
because they go through my Medicare, I pay nothing for them.

 RM> and doctors walking past
 RM> your room sticking their head in and just saying, How you doing?,
 RM> and then carrying on.. and billing for a 'consultation'..

That's real also.  I am currently being billed by a radiology group for an
x-ray at an external hospital's ER ... that I've never been to.

 RM> From a lot of comments on here it sounds like the VA is pretty good
 RM> although that's another thing we hear about where Vets can't get
 RM> access to the services or there are long waiting lists for things.

The VA hospital at a local level is pretty good but dealing with the VA on a
regional/national level is pure unadulterated hell.

 RM> That's great, a real help..

At the income level I am at, anything helps.

I am thinking that once I get a car, I might go back to work part-time at a
job I an physically handle.

-- Sean

... Why do they put Braille on drive-through bank machines?
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