Ills for the Ill

I no longer wish to hear about universal health care as “socialized” medicine that will wreak havoc on our health care system and lead to long lines and waits for care.

And count me among those who believe the arrival of a Sacred Heart Hospital in the county could not come too soon.

Those were my primary thoughts recently as my wife experienced medical issues that required her to be transported by ambulance to Bay Medical Center.

Or should I say the Bay Medical Center waiting room because the entire hospital is one of those hurry-up-and-wait places.

Bay Medical Center highlights a salient point for anybody with remaining questions about our health care system: it is overwhelmed.

My wife, who entered the hospital as a cardiac patient, was quickly deemed to be a patient in need of admittance for further observation and testing to determine the exact nature of the problem and extent of any damage.

The problem is that a patient who is admitted does tend to need a room and there were no rooms at the inn.

Maybe there were some available at the Value Inn down the road, but not at Bay Medical Center, at least not for the day. And I mean the day - and much of the next.

My wife ended up remaining in the emergency department for more than 24 hours, 27 hours to be exact.

We arrived at the hospital at 3:30 p.m. CT - or should I say, I arrived, the ambulance had to wait for one from Washington County to off-load its patient - and my wife did not end up in a room until nearly 7:30 p.m. CT the following day.

How much longer could the waiting have been under any kind of universal health care system?

While still laying on what amounted to a only slightly better-padded ambulance stretcher, my wife was poked and prodded, taken away for tests and returned, all the time remaining in the emergency room area, though moved to what they called the Observation Area.

The Observation Area was a step up only in that there was a working television and a degree of privacy - there were eight patients in a large room separated by a thin curtain.

And if there was somebody actually doing any observing, it was by stealth as requests for assistance or medicines were half-heartedly answered by employees dressed as if working at home - shirts hanging loose out of pants, a stethoscope around the neck the only indication they were in medicine.

The emergency room itself was a nightmare.

Unless you are bleeding out, a cardiac patient or wheezing your last breath, there is plenty of time to read War and Peace while you wait to see a doctor or any kind of caregiver.

On the first day my wife was there, I noticed a couple sitting nearby as I waited for the ambulance to come to the dock with the wife. That couple was still there when I walked out for some fresh air close to midnight.

About the only thing that happened quickly was the handing over of my insurance card and credit card for payment of my co-pay. My wife wasn’t in the hospital an hour before that transaction occurred, or 26 hours before she would actually be placed in a real patient room.

I shudder to think about those without insurance or lacking adequate insurance.

Now, I don’t blame BMC at all. By the looks on the faces on the health care personnel in the emergency room and throughout the emergency department, these folks were overwhelmed, bent over like a dog that’s been beat too much.

Puffy bags outlined by dark circles under eyes, looks of exasperated resignation, these were folks doing their best in a brutal situation that by all accounts from the few days my wife spent there repeats itself every day, 24 hours each day.

Not one time, no matter the hour, did I venture through the emergency room area without seeing a line of folks at the front counter and many people sacked out as if at an airport terminal after a flight has been cancelled.

The problems manifested at Bay Medical Center are complex and manifold, but two stuck out.

First, as the regional hospital of last resort, BMC is, for Bay, Gulf and surrounding counties, the doctor’s office for those who either lack insurance or who are underinsured.

In that setting, however, the line between insured and uninsured is a fine one at best.

Secondly, considering its status, BMC receives patients from around the region - the experiences of a Gulf County ambulance sound similar to those of a Delta airliner waiting for clearance to land at Hartsfield Airport in Atlanta.

I kept thinking of a story I did several years ago about the “Golden Hour,” those 60 minutes that divide life and death in too many critical cases.

In Gulf County, they carry additional equipment and medicines on the ambulances not only because they are an hour or more away from the hospital when picking up a patient but because also because once they arrive they may be in a holding pattern waiting for other ambulances from other counties to drop off their patients.

Thankfully, my wife is doing well and is on the road back to a full recovery. But after the experiences of a week ago the thoughts permanently seared in my mind concern just how soon that Sacred Heart facility would open its doors.

It couldn’t happen soon enough, and I’m betting there are plenty of county residents of similar mind after similar experiences.