Bill Murray
Ghostbuster, weatherman, author, badger, lunatic.
Fuck me, this is insane!
A little context, metro Calgary has a population of ~1.5 million people and served by the following hospitals:
-Foothills Medical Centre located in the NW part of Calgary, is the biggest hospital in the region and only Level 1 trauma centre in the city. It has a very large quite modern emerg department. I would (and have) gone here for care.
-Peter Lougheed Centre is in the NE part of the city which is mostly a great big ghetto filled with lots of east indians, darkies and white trash. Its emerg is a shithole. I would not go here as its crowded, old, dirty and gets a lot of horrible clientele.
-Rockyview Hospital is in the SW, mid-sized facility and reasonably modern emerg. I would go here if it wasn't a particularly serious issue.
-South Health Campus is in the far SE, newest hospital in the region so quite nice & clean. It serves a large part of the city as well as much of the southern part of the province.
-The Sheldon Chumir Centre is downtown, an urgent care facility meaning no overnight admits, a place to go if you have a boo-boo, broken limb, etc.
-The other facilities in surrounding smaller towns are also just urgent care and with the exception of the one in Airdrie not open 24 hours.
-The screen grab was taken at 11:00 pm on Saturday night. So before the witching hour and the bars close, all the drunks hit the streets, start getting into fights, driving like assholes, etc. Its likely that ambulances are currently being diverted to the Lougheed, Rockyview & SHC in anticipation for the inevitable surge of traffic that will come >2:00 am and end up at the Foothills.
I realize that this is quite local and probably not of interest to most people on Goregrish, I was just stunned at some of the wait times. Its not unusual to see times >4 hours at all of these hospitals any time of the day, tonight happens to be particularly bad. Canada has socialized medicine which while free (not really since we're taxed out the ass to the point our rectums could make it to @Rick James' thread) and might be envied by people from the US but its not all it seems. Wait times for all surgical procedures, to see specialists are ridiculously long, its a combination of scarce resources like doctors, operating rooms, etc. and that much of our care is rationed by the government as a function of budgets.
I'd be interested in hearing from @ZeroK, @Flatus Tube, @punkduck or anyone else and their experience with emergency medicine.
While the situation could be better I do have to acknowledge that my experience in the past few years was mostly excellent. I had two visits to Foothills emerg, both resulting in an inpatient admit to the hospital. In both cases I was triaged <15 minutes, seen by a doc <60 minutes and admitted into a unit <6 hours...all of that was IMO great care.
A little context, metro Calgary has a population of ~1.5 million people and served by the following hospitals:
-Foothills Medical Centre located in the NW part of Calgary, is the biggest hospital in the region and only Level 1 trauma centre in the city. It has a very large quite modern emerg department. I would (and have) gone here for care.
-Peter Lougheed Centre is in the NE part of the city which is mostly a great big ghetto filled with lots of east indians, darkies and white trash. Its emerg is a shithole. I would not go here as its crowded, old, dirty and gets a lot of horrible clientele.
-Rockyview Hospital is in the SW, mid-sized facility and reasonably modern emerg. I would go here if it wasn't a particularly serious issue.
-South Health Campus is in the far SE, newest hospital in the region so quite nice & clean. It serves a large part of the city as well as much of the southern part of the province.
-The Sheldon Chumir Centre is downtown, an urgent care facility meaning no overnight admits, a place to go if you have a boo-boo, broken limb, etc.
-The other facilities in surrounding smaller towns are also just urgent care and with the exception of the one in Airdrie not open 24 hours.
-The screen grab was taken at 11:00 pm on Saturday night. So before the witching hour and the bars close, all the drunks hit the streets, start getting into fights, driving like assholes, etc. Its likely that ambulances are currently being diverted to the Lougheed, Rockyview & SHC in anticipation for the inevitable surge of traffic that will come >2:00 am and end up at the Foothills.
I realize that this is quite local and probably not of interest to most people on Goregrish, I was just stunned at some of the wait times. Its not unusual to see times >4 hours at all of these hospitals any time of the day, tonight happens to be particularly bad. Canada has socialized medicine which while free (not really since we're taxed out the ass to the point our rectums could make it to @Rick James' thread) and might be envied by people from the US but its not all it seems. Wait times for all surgical procedures, to see specialists are ridiculously long, its a combination of scarce resources like doctors, operating rooms, etc. and that much of our care is rationed by the government as a function of budgets.
I'd be interested in hearing from @ZeroK, @Flatus Tube, @punkduck or anyone else and their experience with emergency medicine.
While the situation could be better I do have to acknowledge that my experience in the past few years was mostly excellent. I had two visits to Foothills emerg, both resulting in an inpatient admit to the hospital. In both cases I was triaged <15 minutes, seen by a doc <60 minutes and admitted into a unit <6 hours...all of that was IMO great care.
