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I'm Waiting For TGH To Do Better

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By STEVE OTTO

sotto@tampatrib.com

Published: February 6, 2009

"Oh, it's sore, but not too bad."

Some people are like that. I had driven my mom down to visit someone in the intensive care unit at Tampa General Hospital, and she had taken off her jacket and was trying to put on the required gown mask and gloves. That's when I noticed one arm was swollen so much she looked like Popeye.

She admitted she had fallen the night before but said the swollen and purple blob that was where her arm should be was just a sprain. I told her we were going directly down to the emergency room. An ICU nurse got us a wheelchair, and we rolled into the emergency room around 1:30 on a Tuesday afternoon.

The emergency complex at TGH was opened less than two years ago and is impressive in its layout and facilities, especially if you remember the old emergency room. Maybe that was part of it. It is so big it seemed deceptively empty.

The Waiting Game
We checked in, sat down in the waiting room and, well, waited.

It was just under an hour when she was called into a triage room - not too bad, even if she was a little uncomfortable. The examining nurse sent her off for X-rays, and about 20 minutes later she was rolled back to the waiting room, where we were asked to wait.

An hour went by, then two. I went up to the desk and was told her name had been color coded yellow, which meant she was on some kind of priority list.

My mother is 87 years old, which she probably isn't thrilled that I'm telling you, but don't you wonder that after a total of three hours she still was sitting with what appeared to be a broken arm in a waiting room?

Three hours turned to four, and I went back up to the desk.

"We've been sitting out there for four hours," I said, The man looked at the paperwork in front of him. "You've only been here three hours and 43 minutes," he said with just that hint of arrogance that tempted me to grab him by the neck and ask him how he would like to sit in the waiting room for three hours and 43 minutes with a broken nose, but I didn't.

Sometime later, I'm guessing around 7:30 or a little later, we were called and moved into what they call their minor surgery rooms, where she was asked to lie down. There was another hour and a half wait.

Bottom line is that a temporary cast was put on and she was discharged just after 11:30 and I got her home a little after midnight.

I'm Angry And Discouraged

I'm ticked because it was my own mother, but it's also discouraging because my sense is this is the way it is. I've been in emergency waiting rooms before in other hospitals as well as TGH. Consistently they are run by dedicated, skilled people in a highly pressurized environment.

At the same time I have seen too many situations like this one. Is this what is supposed to pass for medical care in this country, when an 87-year-old woman in pain has to wait for hour after hour for treatment?

It's a level of care that we - at least here in this community - have come to tolerate as the way it is. I think we can do better. Tampa General has come so far and has rightfully earned accolades for its level of care, but maybe someone needs to come sit in the emergency room for a few hours. They might learn something.

Keyword: Otto Graphs, to read more of Steve Otto's musings.

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