In article rWkab.40989$n94.40634@fed1read04,
"Circe" wrote:

"Tina" wrote in message
om...
Does anyone else think it's exceptionally slow to wait three and a
half hours after a head injury with symptoms (sleeping, uneven gait,
pain moving around her head) in a child with a bleeding disorder to
get a catscan? I'm still angry (obviously), but I don't know how
angry to get, if I complain. That nurse definitely lied, I know that
for sure.

I agree with everyone that 3.5 hours seems like far too long to have to wait
to be seen after an incident like this, particularly if the child has a
known clotting disorder. OTOH, I have to say that my experience suggests
it's not at all uncommon and might even be normal.

When Julian cut his finger open with a pair of scissors on a Sunday, we too
him to the ER. It was very busy, and we eventually ended up going to an
urgent care center because the wait was 6+ hours. However, it was an hour
(and maybe 1.5 hours) before we were even triaged. And during that hour, we
met a couple with a son a little over than Solana who'd had a garden tool
fall on his head at a local home improvement warehouse. He had a significant
laceration on the top of his head and had been exhibiting other potential
symptoms of concussion/brain-bleed like Solana (sleepiness, nausea). They
had been there at 3 hours by the time we met them and they had still not
been seen by the doctor when we left, so they must have waited a good 4
hours before they were seen!

one of the reasons for this is that people take kids with cut fingers to
the ER -- it is this great surge of trivial problems that clog things up

part of the reason is that ERs are used as primary care by those without
insurance, and pediatricians who routinely worked with patients with
minor problems e.g. broken arms, cut fingers etc in the past, now don't
work after hours and send people to ERs and part of it is the judgment
of people who think it appropriate to use an ER for a trivial problem.