City Newspaper Archives - 11/2007
HEALTH CARE: Emergency Room stories
Published on Nov 13, 2007
My husband has been taken to the emergency rooms at both Strong and Rochester General within the past eight months. He was kept in Strong's emergency room all night with a suspected heart problem, among all the noise and disruption, because no beds were available in the Observation Unit.
Recently at General, he sat in the waiting room for over 6 1/2 hours in pain, and I am sure would have waited even longer were it not for my complaining to the Charge Nurse.
I was told that these long waiting times were caused by the state's hospital-funding cutbacks and that this situation exists everywhere in the US because so many hospitals have been closed. I don't know about the rest of the country, but I do know that ViaHealth, which owns General, closed Genesee Hospital a few years ago, thus contributing mightily to this unfortunate situation in our community.
So I ask, Who cares about ordinary people and their families and what they must endure in order to receive emergency care? And why are emergency rooms being closed when our population is growing and the Baby Boomers are reaching retirement age? What kind of priorities does our country have, anyway?
MARGARET TONKINSON, ROCHESTER
