Healthcare - Yeah, Right

Wednesday Hunter began to show signs of being sick. He was lethargic and feverish. In the middle of the night he awoke with a croupy cough. Heather was wanting immediately to take him to the doctor (which, at that time, would mean emergency room) but he finally quieted and went to sleep. In the morning she got urgings to go ahead and get him to a doctor as soon as they were available. So she had Tony drive her to a walk-in clinic around noon. --

When the nurse started to take his vital statistics she had to do a double take when getting his temperature. 105.2º That can't be right, take it again - still 105.2º. The doctor at this point gave Hunter some fever reducer, wrote a note and sent them immediately to the hospital.--

So they got to the ER and the hospital did the usual triage check up. In spite of the fact that a doctor had sent them due to an unusually high fever (which had been artificially reduced with the use of drugs) they deemed him unworthy of any immediate attention. As a matter of fact, he kept getting bumped to the bottom of the list for 4 - 5 hours. He also has pink eye. Other patients getting called before Hunter were curious as to why the obviously very sick toddler was being ignoring.--

Denny was finally told that they were #2 on the list. But the fever was coming back and patients were going back every 30 - 45 minutes. So they would have to sit in the waiting room for another 1 - 1 1/2 hours with a severely feverish boy. How high would the fever go this time? They gave up.--

They headed to a nearby urgent care clinic. Within 20 minutes Hunter was being checked out. His fever was currently back up to 104º. They did a culture but stated that most likely he had swine flu (the flu du jour), the lab was not open so they wouldn't have the results til later. The x-ray showed the beginning of pneumonia and of course, the pink eye.--

So by about 8:30 they were finally getting the prescriptions filled and heading home to allow the sick baby to go to bed.--

Why would the hospital ignore the doctor's note and concern about the severely high fever? Why would they allow a probably very contagious toddler to hang out in the waiting room for 4 - 5 hours to infect everyone coming in? This I don't understand.--

Our healthcare system is a joke.