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Life on the Street: The REAL ER

Posted November 14, 2007

“Nearest and best do not always equate in Baltimore.” — Christopher Corbett

by Christopher Corbett, TodaysFinancialNews.com

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Baltimore — (TFN): The grim end last June of Edith Isabel Rodriguez, who died ignored on the floor of a Los Angeles emergency room, generated a lot of concern. But anyone who lives in a large city knows that the last place you go for help is an ER.

On TV dramas, the competent and compassionate doctors and nurses in emergency rooms are never too busy to comfort the sick and troubled. But if you live in a big city you know this is fantasy. There is no place more dangerous or scarier than an ER.

In Baltimore, we have legendary ER horror stories. Attendants at one hospital — now blessedly closed — actually let a guy die on the sidewalk in front of the hospital because it was “not their job” to walk a few yards to fetch him into the ER. That was no more shocking than what happened in Los Angeles last week.

The last time I was in an ER, my wife had felt a little faint and dizzy. Next thing she knew she was in an ambulance and taken to the nearest Baltimore hospital. Nearest and best do not always equate in Baltimore.

Baltimore is home to Johns Hopkins, often said to be the best medical school and best hospital in the world. But the reality is that most of the time you do not get taken to Hopkins but to a third- or fourth-string hospital where, to put in bluntly, ALL HOPE ABANDON, YE WHO ENTER HERE.

My wife was in a waiting area when I got to the ER, fully expecting to be taken home. Sitting on a gurney next to her was a scantily clad fat man who was grinning and singing to himself. His hair was braided in a long queue of the sort worn by Chinese coolies in the 19th century. He was wearing only the briefest of hospital smocks.

Not a pretty sight. Read on here…

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Posted by Christopher Corbett · Filed Under News that Matters 

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