Well I had my experience with the ER...

[ilikepeanutbutter]

I called beforehand and was told that my husband should be admitted to the ER since he was in alot of pain with his sinuses and it was spreading. We drove ALL the way there to have the admitting nurse turn my husband away.

Her advice: take more burana and sleep sitting up. She said he "didn't look bad". He couldn't sleep at all last night due to the pain.

AHHHHH! Well lesson learned, yesh.

Anyone else want to share a horror story?

Katrina

[karel]

And then it turned out to be a ruptured......... ?
Smile, you're up for medical misses.

[biscayne]

Yep, I got one for you.

SO fancies himself as quite the sailor. Only problem with that is that he's out on the boat in all weathers, eating crap and drinking beer. Has a bit of a delicate stomach in anycase. Boat is sort of lovely oldfashioned wooden one. Which is all lovely, but obviously no facilites on it, other than a bucket for number 2s and stick your wi**y over the side for number ones. So, after a long week out on the ocean wave, eating and drinking god knows what, he realises he is massively constipated. Tries everything. Nothing works. Another few days go by - nothing. He's in agony. Another few days, still nothing. So off to the hospital we go. He tries to explain, nobody listens, just admit him for stomach pain which they think is appendicitis, never mind that he is worn out explaining that it is constipation and what he needs is an industrial sized enema. Lies in the bed, surgeon comes around, glances at him and says "oh yes a clear case", takes a marker and places an X where the appendix is. SO continues to explain he is constipated, but is persuaded that although he might be constipated, his appendix is also inflamed. Off he goes to surgery, out comes the appendix which had nothing wrong with it. A day later he's still in the bed, still in agony, when they say they don't know why, he finally goes balistic, and starts screaming that he came in for constipation and is STILL constipated. Finally gets the enema, goes into sort of a wet room specially for the recipiants of enemas and lets rip...................Next day he leaves the hospital, feeling sore and weak . Takes a taxi, and tells the bloke to go easy as he has been operated on. Bloke pulls out and promptly gets into a fender bender which throws SO around in the back of the car and ruptures the surgical incision...............................

SO's comment after this comedy of errors, "well it was good they took it out, because now I don't have to worry about it rupturing when I'm sailing"................
underpinned by his (and almost all Finnish men I know) inevitable ending "it's fact" (without the "a")

[Rosamunda]

We've had a few (I have three boys....)

I remember one quite recently when the school nurse called my SO (the school is in HEL) to tell him our son had scratched his cornea and was in great pain, but she couldn't send him to hospital in HEL because we live in Espoo. My SO didn't have the car that day and I was at work (phone on silent). So, SO told nurse to put boy in taxi and send him to Knockia and then they would go together to Jorvi (Espoo hospital). When they got to Jorvi (after waiting an hour or two) the doctor said they would have to send him to the eye clinic at HYKS (HEL Univ hospital). So, 'nother taxi back to HEL.

Meanwhile I got out of my lesson, read my SMSes, cancelled work for the rest of the day and drove to the hospital. I drove into the underground carpark, forgetting skibox on the roof.... no space on the upper level BUT the lower level has less headroom than the upper level, so I got stuck halfway down the ramp. Not really stuck but had to scrape the skibox backwards up the ramp again.

Everything ended OK. Four hours later my son got treatment (ie an examination and lots of painkillers)and we all went home tired and hungry.

[Rick1]

Yes that outsourcing of Healthcare is a wunderful thing (costs three times more but nobody sees it), thanks to the sitting parties

[network_engineer]

PART I:

Strange that we should be discussing this, considering the article here.

PART II:
We had a very negative-positive experience recently, about two months ago. We rushed our then 14-month old champ to the Hyvinkää at about 22.00 (10 PM), who we suspected had fractured his ankle running around.

When we reached the emergency room, there was just one lady there, and then a two others in the corner. Having explained the whole situation over the din of a crying 14-month old, the nurse simply said, in a rather loud voice as I perceive it, that they had about 20 emergencies before us and that it would take its time. Well, twenty emergencies, sure. Emergency, life or death cases, certainly deserve speedier attention - the only thing is that I saw no apart from those mentioned above. We got chatting with the other lady waiting there, a very friendly English woman, who looked at us in surprise and said that she had been there for about two hours and was just waiting for her final report before she could go home. She suggested that then next time I see the doctor, I just ask him directly if he could take a look at our son.

And that is exactly what I did. But here's the thing: The doctor was not harried in any way, he leisurely walked out of his room, joked with the nurses, had a glass of water and was strolling back to his room, when we asked him. He readily agreed and joked that it was time that he had something to do. In fact, when we stepped in to his room, he had some web-page opened on his machine and then some other pages as well and IIRC, a novel that he was reading.

Things went quite smoothly after that, although the look on the nurses face was a bit, let's say weird. Extremely annoyed I was. But in the end, things went fine.

PART III:

In fact, this brings another case to mind from Jorvi, where as I am told, this acquaintance was kept waiting, EVEN THOUGH, he was complaining of chest pain. He was kept waiting for about two hours, and then when he nearly collapsed from not being able to breath did they take him in, only to realise, he had a 74% percent blockage. Once they realised it, then of course, they wheeled him straight into surgery.

I think the source of the problem is this stupid chart that they have stuck on the wall there, which indicates the condition of the patient and the time period to respond. In my very clear linear way of thinking, I reason that the waiting period indicates time within which they must be attended to, not the period for which they MUST be kept waiting even if they have nothing to do. Their reasoning is faulty, what happens if nothing happens in the following two hours and then a bus load of injured passengers shows up? And are we really paying for them to sit twiddling their thumbs? They could opine that this method would discourage patients coming in the night... yeah, right, and we pay these specimens to argue that a hospital in the middle of the night is exactly where one would want to be without a reason. Seems like we have grade-school drop-outs using their non-existent reasoning skills.

What bothers me was that nurse and specimens like that. If all of them were like "it", then I fail to find a reason for the pay hike that they got. Less work, less pay, works fine. It ended well, so I did not pursue it, but I swore if it repeats the next time, I am filing a complaint and following it up all the way to her career grave!

QUESTION:
Even though the incident has passed, I still do not know who to address this stupid poster issue to and have them clarify it for such characters. At the risk of generalising all those in the noble profession, there are quite a few nitwits in the system to whom everything must be spelled out. Any ideas who to address the problem to?

Cheers.

[Rick1]

Sometimes it looks to me that the government is cutting on healtcare to say: you see it does not work anymore, all of you should be going private (see how wunderful that works in the USA) eventhough a large part of our taxes should be going to healthcare instead of all kind of schemes with art-buying, conferences building etc. to support the sitting parties. There should be some examination of cases but it goes often wrong for the ones that really need it. I know a case of a small child who only got an infuse and doctor when she did not react anymore (stomach flu) and her parents had to go from one place to another which took halve a day.

[mita]

I've only gone to private clinics for ER type stuff.
It cost something but avoiding the line is worth it. Prices are not bad compared to my home country back west.

[joanmanuel]

I've only gone to private clinics for ER type stuff.
It cost something but avoiding the line is worth it. Prices are not bad compared to my home country back west.

and which private clinic do you recommend? it is always handy to have one

[zax]

I have a positive story...

A few weeks back junior managed to swallow a 50 cent piece, which lodged in his throat. We rushed him to hospital. He was attended to immediately, x-rayed immediately, and rushed straight to Helsinki in an ambulance where doctors were standing by to extract it. About 1 minute before the ambulance arrived at the hospital he finally managed to swallow it It worked it's own way out 10 days later and is now on display in our kitchen (after a thorough cleanup).

A few more grey hairs for me, but all of the medical staff were fantastic.

[Pursuivant]

QUESTION:
Even though the incident has passed, I still do not know who to address this stupid poster issue to and have them clarify it for such characters. At the risk of generalising all those in the noble profession, there are quite a few nitwits in the system to whom everything must be spelled out. Any ideas who to address the problem to?

There is an ombudsman... ummm... for malpractice there is potilasvahinkolautakunta... ummm... its 1. the head sugeon of the ward, 2. head surgeon of the hoispital, 3. social and medical department of the province (lääninlhallitus)

[mita]

I've only gone to private clinics for ER type stuff.
It cost something but avoiding the line is worth it. Prices are not bad compared to my home country back west.

and which private clinic do you recommend? it is always handy to have one

If i remember correctly a normal visit with no extra's was around 70 - 85 euros

Dextra
Munkkivuori Medical Center
Raumantie 1 A Helsinki
Telephone: 09-560-160
Private facility. Clinic, radiology, laboratory.

[annekmc]

I have a positive story...

A few weeks back junior managed to swallow a 50 cent piece, which lodged in his throat. We rushed him to hospital. He was attended to immediately, x-rayed immediately, and rushed straight to Helsinki in an ambulance where doctors were standing by to extract it. About 1 minute before the ambulance arrived at the hospital he finally managed to swallow it It worked it's own way out 10 days later and is now on display in our kitchen (after a thorough cleanup).

A few more grey hairs for me, but all of the medical staff were fantastic.

Glad to hear something positive, I have only ever had positive experience with medical staff/doctors/hospital here. I think the system is pretty good and don't mind paying the small charges for the care we get here.