Officials try to stop ER overuse [1 hr ago]

trying to figure this out

Jefferson County hospital does not like people to show up at the er unless you are half dead. I try to keep from going there. I was in the hospital there for over a week. I had pneunomia. They have some nice nurses there but they need to have better doctors there and more educated lab techs there. I was accused of using pcp and all it was some of the medications my regular doctor has me on showed up that way. When i got out of the hospital there i went to my regular doctor and had a drug screening done and nothing showed up like that. I was really upset about it because i do not use street drugs at all and they had me beliving that someone had slipped me something without my knowledge. My regular doctor told me that there test was false and to not worry about it. I could have sued them but i feel like they probably would have to shut down the hospital if i did that because from the way the hospital looks it don't have much money anyways.

tinytot wrote:

Jefferson County hospital does not like people to show up at the er unless you are half dead. I try to keep from going there. I was in the hospital there for over a week. I had pneunomia. They have some nice nurses there but they need to have better doctors there and more educated lab techs there. I was accused of using pcp and all it was some of the medications my regular doctor has me on showed up that way. When i got out of the hospital there i went to my regular doctor and had a drug screening done and nothing showed up like that. I was really upset about it because i do not use street drugs at all and they had me beliving that someone had slipped me something without my knowledge. My regular doctor told me that there test was false and to not worry about it. I could have sued them but i feel like they probably would have to shut down the hospital if i did that because from the way the hospital looks it don't have much money anyways.

too often people have used the ER as an easy way to obtain drugs for personal addiction---when they dont have street drugs available or maybe they are just addicted to any kind of pain med--who knows. I am a nurse and I can tell you there are many times when this happens--- and now with lab work being done and screening for this, it is usually apparent to the medical personel when a patient has a real valid pain or when it is for drug addiction--unfortunateley that is not always the true case--there are many people that have too take some type of narcotic for pain for a valid reason and unfortunately the medical community has seen so much fraud--esp those in the ER-- that they have became jaded and unsympathetic to those that are having true pain--it is a sad situation.I personally believe that a Dr.or nurse should be rotated out of their ER duties more to prevent this,so that they are better able to deal with the emotional roller coaster of emotions that working there causes so that they might not be so quick to make assumptions- but then there are those patients that have opened the ER door requesting pain meds so many times that the drs and nurses there just know which is valid pain and which is just a hidden request for a quick fix.
God bless our Drs and nurses for their dedication and care----