SOMEBODY TELL ME WHAT THIS SCUMBAG IS STILL ALIVE...PLEASE. "Suspected illegal immigrant charged with rape of a TEN YEAR OLD GIRL" Wait...she was NINE when she was raped, and she gave birth at the age of TEN. Well, Senator Coates, you're right...we have NO problems with illegals in this country.
Read the story here. As the father of daughters, (one is the same age as the girl who was raped), I want to assure you that were this one of MY daughters in this story, this "suspected" illegal wouldn't have to worry about a fair trial. He would have died of lead poisoning after a long and very arduous time in the back of my truck that would make Gitmo look like a weekend at Six Flags. First, the suspect is a "suspected" illegal. Second, he's a child rapist. I can't wait to hear Harry Coates' response to this one.
[Note to my "WWJD" friends: Jesus said,
But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it
were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and
that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. So, there.]
BIG SCARE, BIG LESSONS: Suzanne was home sick yesterday with severe upper GI pain and by the late afternoon, decided it was time to head to the doctor. I took her to the doctor where he ran some tests and told us that we needed to get her to the emergency room for more tests. He mentioned pancreatic something-or-other and all we knew at that point was that pancreatic anything was not good. Off we went to the ER. Once we arrived, we realized that it was probably going to be a long wait - the ER was not filled to overflowing, but it was busy. They took our insurance information, checked Suzanne's vitals and asked her what her pain level was. A "10" was equal to childbirth. Suzanne looked at the nurse and fought back tears and said, "this is a ten." The nurse looked at her and assured her that they would get with her quickly and asked us to head back to the ER waiting room.
People were continuing to filter in and I would say that there were probably 14 or 15 patients, one or two in obvious pain. Conversely, there were a surprising number of people eating dinner (which made Suzanne even sicker to smell the food), laughing and joking - obviously they were using the ER as their primary care facility because I had heard them explain to the admitting nurse that they didn't have insurance of any kind. The noise was getting a little intense so we went into the "quiet room" adjacent to the ER waiting room. Suzanne rested on the couch, tossing and writhing because she couldn't get comfortable.
We had been there about an hour at this point.
Suzanne's name was called and we thought to ourselves, "good, let's find out what this problem is all about," and we were escorted in the general direction of the emergency room and stopped. The nurse shuttled Suzanne in what I am convinced was at some point one of Mercy hospital's broom closets and the nurse pulled out her trusty needles and took some blood. Well, she tried to, anyway. She poked and prodded and finally decided to use a vein in Suzanne's hand. After she finished, she escorted us back to the waiting room where the "quiet room" had been homesteaded by a family with a not-so-quiet baby.
Another hour passed and various patients filtered in and out. One teenage girl, in severe pain, had obviously broken her leg and she was escorted to the ER quickly - as well she should have been. At this point, the pain Suzanne was experiencing was obvious to everyone around us - she was rocking back and forth, color had drained from her face and she was tearing up again.
We had been there three hours when one of the nurses came over and asked Suzanne how she was doing (I resisted the urge to say "she's doing fine, we're just waiting for a tanning bed to come available" - here's your sign), and Suzanne looked up at her and told her "not good." I looked at the nurse and said, very calmly, that I needed to know whether or not we needed to head over to Baptist, or St. Anthony's or somewhere else. She ensured us that it wouldn't be long.
Our wait had totaled at this point, three and a half hours and oddly enough, after one of the nurses overheard me on the phone with Fox 25's Andrew Speno, Suzanne was taken to a room back in the ER where she was seen by a doctor. Well, not exactly a doctor but a PA. Keep in mind that all this time, the doctor we had seen to begin with gave us an ER referral and mentioned the "P" word - pancreatic something-or-other.
The PA poked around and asked some questions and said that he was going to recommend an IV with all kinds of upper GI stuff - I'm still not sure what was in it - and diagnosed Suzanne with a viral GI something-or-other. After five hours at the ER, we left with recommendations and a laundry list of prescriptions.
What did we learn? First, our emergency rooms have become a primary care facility for individuals and families with no insurance. Second, ER nurses are overworked and probably underpaid. They have to deal with people who come in with things like bee stings and stubbed toes and must treat each patient as though they are facing an amputation. Third, if you want to get in quickly, call an ambulance because you are taken directly to a room and are seen by a doctor. Lastly, we have learned that our healthcare system is a disaster and the fact that ERs have become defacto primary care facilities by a whole segment of our population underscores what we have thought all along - our healthcare delivery system is a train wreck.
What can be done about it? Who knows - someone infinitely smarter than me will have to answer that question, but it is clear that something needs to be done. And no, it has NOTHING to do with so-called tort reform.