Ernya.com

I really, really am. It's a money sucking machine. Any of the 'care', empathy, compassion, etc. was sucked out of it a long time ago and you'll only really find it in the rare gem in the medical field.

Regardless, this is my rant:

So last night my child was pretty sick. He's three months old and had some nasty wet coughs happening, was having trouble breathing and therefore eating, had a fever of over a 100 and started wheezing. So I call my pediatrician's nurse line since it was after hours when he got particularly bad and was told to go to the emergency room.

I get there and right away they tell us "Oh, we're 99% sure it's just a virus like a cold. But we're going to run some tests to make sure..." I think the only thing they did after that that I agreed with was to suction out his nose and get all the mucous out, although he was not a happy camper about it and his nose got bloody because of it. After that though was dreadful.

First, they did a catheter to collect a urine sample. As you can imagine, he wasn't happy about having a plastic tube shoved through the inside of his penis. Then, they needed to do an IV and this was the absolute worst. They literally spent fifteen minutes digging around my sons arms and he was in so much pain that blood vessels were popping in his face from screaming about it. I felt terrible for the miserable expression he gave me. He's got all sorts of needle holes in his arms now from the various attempts. They took a bunch of blood and started giving him saline, because at this point he hadn't eaten in hours and they weren't going to allow him to until after all tests were concluded. After that, they did X-Rays and with an infant, you have to sit there and hold them in uncomfortable positions at a time when he's already pissed enough.

So after all the misery he went through, they get lab results back and say "Yep, it's exactly what we thought. Give him Tyenol and as much pedialyte as you can get him to drink."

All the tests, all the outstanding misery was just to make sure on the off 1% chance that he didn't have pneumonia. It made me so...so so angry. I was left with the feeling that honestly, they didn't give a shit. All they cared about was milking my insurance and me for what it was worth with absolutely no concern whatsoever for what was actually best for the child. I felt it would have saved a ton of time, stress, and money if they had just given me the warning signs of pneumonia and let me go home at that.

Have you ever had that feeling? That all that people SHOULD be going into the medical field for is gone and money reigns supreme? Maybe it's the feeling of doctors now being more pharmacists than doctors because of how, with adults at least, it's more a matter of "We're going to use this, this and this drug" on you instead of actually getting to the heart of whatever ailment there is and trying to get rid of it.

I don't know I have a ton of gripes at the way we run things in America at least and last night wasn't the only example I can pull, but I guess when it involves your child it just makes you particularly pissed off and I don't need to waste everyone's time with more stories.

I kind of made that 'In America at least' comment at the end because I know that different countries have different systems. If you go into any medical field here you're bound to make a ton of money, thus we get a lot more doctors. However the cost is that they end up turning more into profit machines than doctors.

I am thankful however that we can at least go to a doctor and that not every country is so lucky. Do you have the option of going to another country for medical care if you just hit dire straights or is it pretty much a case of "Well if you don't have a ton of money you're screwed?"

Alright here's a question since I'm going to guess you're not a parent and haven't had to deal with watching your child suffer. Obviously tests that a hospital runs costs hundreds to thousands of dollars. I had to pay $150 copay right there and then. The hospital will probably send me a bill for close to a thousand dollars AFTER insurance makes their payout. Add to that I'm getting separate bills for EACH physician and analyst that saw him. Then separate bills on top of THAT for the actual labwork, which is no longer covered by insurance.

They KNEW what it was. They could have sucked his nose out and, like I said, given me the warning signs of pneumonia and told me to see my pediatrician asap. Instead I'll probably have to pay close to an extra $1000 (not counting initial emergency room costs which will probably give me a good $500 out of pocket) out of my pocket even WITH insurance on that off 1% chance it was pnuemonia which they were certain he didn't have but they did the tests for it anyways. Do you really think most people have that type of money to just throw around?

Which is why I said they could have told me the warning signs to look out for and had me see my pediatrician as soon as he was back in the office. I wouldn't have had a problem with all the tests if they really thought was at high risk for pneumonia and couldn't possibly wait for treatment, if they thought there was a good chance he might have actually had it. But they didn't.

And I didn't say you absolutely weren't a parent, I only guessed so because not too terribly many parents can just throw their child's stress, screaming, pain and suffering aside as inconsequential. He's already sick and suffering enough, why make it ten times worse for something you're 99% sure he doesn't have when I can just see a pediatrician in the morning and have him check on him? Hell he has five different band-aids on his arm from all the attempts to get an IV in him.

I never would have brought him to the hospital and would have waited if I knew they were going to put him through what they did for something they flat out said he just didn't likely have. Add on to that that my budget's about to be tight as hell as soon as those bills all start coming in, money that would have gone towards buying him walkers, toys, etc. and increasing his quality of life.

(Also I get it, I shouldn't have made an assumption about you and I'm sorry for that. But don't go getting pissed off about it when you did the same exact thing to me in your first post. If you are a parent, it should be blindingly obvious that I'm going to fight back when I'm already angry enough about my child as it is and you then go on to insinuate that my child's suffering doesn't matter in this case. I'd imagine, as you put it, that you'd be just as pissed off if the roles were reversed and I implied YOU were a bad parent.)

The closest I've come to actually having to beg for something from a doctor was weird.

I've always had this big lump inside of my armpit. It's kind of hard to see but if you feel my armpit you definitely feel it in there. So, I always asked doctors to check it out for me but no one did. After all worst case scenario it could be a tumor right? I think I asked six or seven before one finally took the time to check it out and found out it was a third breast.

When I was uninsured I used to have needle phobia so badly that I refused to come near a doctor unless it was literally a life or death situation and even then, I had to sign waivers saying if I die it's not the hospital's fault because I refused treatment, aka refused needles. Sad thing was that all it really took was a nurse that was actually patient enough to help calm me down and do an IV nice and slow.

Since I've been insured though it's the difference between night and day. My dentist for instance scheduled every single procedure he could think of for me, ended up putting me in the hospital for a month and it took two different surgeries to fix his fuck-ups. You try and refuse options to and say you want to opt-out of something, they then attempt to scare you. For instance when I was in labor I outright said I refused any drugs unless it was a life or death situation. They were going to go ahead and give me Pitocin anyways after being in labor for twelve hours (Probably only six of that was actually at the hospital) because it was just going too slow for their liking. Protest that and they tell you the same thing they tell every mother to get them to do what they want: "Your baby could go into distress..."

I swear a lot of doctors ask themselves two questions: One, 'will I get paid' and two, 'how much' when it comes to what they plan on doing with a patient. I think my actual pediatrician is the only one that hasn't tried to jack me over and I actually trust.

And I don't know why I'm still so angry about it, I should just let it go instead of continuously bitching but...I'm cranky.

I'm with my dad on this one. If anything they could have done the chest X-Ray and only ordered more tests if they saw something that warranted it, not just give him the whole she-bang right from the git-go without any real justification.