The Waiting Room

Have you ever had the experience of waiting in an emergency room? How long did you wait? How were you treated?

Waiting the long hours to see a doctor can be frustrating, especially when it seems as though there people after people are seen before you are. Of course common sense should kick in by now that perhaps their ailment is higher on the priority list than yours, which is standard protocol in hospitals.

These are some of the main issues that were covered in “The Waiting Room”, a documentary focusing on the American healthcare system. The documentary, based in Oakland, CA, gives the audience a sense of the excruciating wait to see a doctor in Highland hospital.

Some patients waiting for over a day, one man in unbearable pain because he had a bullet in his hip, a man trying to get in for surgery for his testicular tumor, a young girl with an infection in her tonsils are a few examples of the patients waiting in Highland hospital that day.

Stop. Let’s think about this for a second, there are 34,482,779 people who live in Canada, while we have 2.2 physicians per 1000 people. Seems pretty low, doesn’t it? Meanwhile 313,914,040 people live in the United States, and they have 2.4 physicians per 1000 people, according to OECD Health data. I’m frustrated just thinking about it.

How many people are actually ill, and in need of a doctor in emergency rooms? In my opinion, I think that some like to try and self-diagnose themselves, and are convinced that there is something medically wrong with them, or some could have a simple case of the sniffles.  Looking for attention, I suppose.  Would wait times go down? Also, how much money are people wasting for this attention?

 Perhaps I’m getting a tad opinionated here, and I will continue to do so.

Us as Canadians are fortunate to have the free health care system, and the potential for benefits through employment that we do. According to the AHRQ (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality) the average/mean cost for an ER visit was $1349 in 2010, and the median cost was $607. The patients who are shown in “The Waiting Room” have no insurance, and some were out of work, and one, could barely afford a bus ticket to see his daughter in the Emergency Room.

Overall, I found the documentary interesting. I was a little confused as to where it was going, but it created a tone for the viewers who have not experienced a U.S Emergency Room.  It also showed the audience what it is like behind the scenes where doctors and nurses cram to get as many patients seen. Sympathy also comes into play where patients have to be bumped down the list many times because of more severe ailments, and patients with critical conditions come in the ambulance.

I think that the filmmaker, Peter Nicks ended the documentary off strong. A young boy, came in to the hospital by ambulance with a gun wound, and later died. The doctors call time of death.

“How old was that kid?” says one doctor.

“15, I think” says the other.