One Man's Emergency Is Another Man's Boo-boo

Last night at the Emergency Room of Maine Medical Center, the state's biggest hospital, I got a first-hand look at the grim reality of health care in this country. The time was 9PM on a Tuesday, which is far different from a Saturday night in any ER in Washington, D.C., where I found myself on several occasions while raising a young child in that city. Last night there were no shooting victims, no blood-gushing stab wounds, no mangled accident victims or black-eyed wives, not even any drug overdoses. Instead, I saw the following:

A bag lady with no visible support of her mammoth breasts, or any other part of her actually, and without teeth, complained bitterly, audibly and non-stop that she had been waiting unattended since 6PM. She was repeatedly corrected by the desk clerk who insisted she had only been waiting for two hours, which he said was reasonable and certainly to be expected. "We take people in order of how sick they are, not how long they've been here," he explained. Still, she continued muttering. I finally asked the nature of her affliction, and she said, "I've got a bad back. I think it's herniated."

A middle-aged woman in a wheelchair and a woolen hat with a pom-pom who had a bag of ice wrapped around her wrist seemed very out of it, her eyes glazed over and her head bobbing. She claimed she was having a "Goddamn stroke." Nobody seemed to believe her, as there she stayed.

A youngish blond woman who looked perfectly fine arrived alone and announced she was having "trouble with her heart." She was ushered inside immediately. Ditto a young man ferried in by four friends, one of whom explained he was "threatening suicide."

A fat lady, also in a wheelchair, seemed fine but for a case of the sniffles. She was accompanied by a relative who had brought along her 8-year-oldish daughter. The little girl never stopped running around and around the waiting room, yelling loudly, singing and talking a blue streak. She was cute, but I hated her guts.

A twenty-something woman was wrapped in a blue blanket and lying on a couch next to her mother. She looked fine to me, but apparently she was not feeling well.

A boy who was walking funny and with a dazed expression was taken in before all of the others who had been waiting for hours, including us.

A young person of indeterminate gender with wild orange hair, lots of makeup, giant hoop earrings, tight jeans and a bright red ski jacket arrived with some amount of fanfare and spoke to the desk clerk for several minutes. The toothless bag lady announced to everyone within earshot and in no uncertain terms, "that's a guy, a real flamer." She explained that she was from the Cape Cod area and thus could "spot one of those a mile away."

I finally went up to the admitting desk and asked how long it would be until our party would be seen by a doctor, or even a nurse or maybe just someone's wise grandmother. He said the average wait time was two hours but you never know, an ambulance could arrive any second and all bets would be off.

A TV suspended from the ceiling was tuned to a dumb sitcom. It was way too loud.  After an hour and a half we left untreated, and more than a little afraid.