What is the point of the ER?

Hey everyone.

I wasn't sure where to dump this thread, so I'm dropping it here. Mods, feel free to move this to a more appropriate subforum if you think it belongs somewhere else.

I’m starting this because of some pretty messed up stories regarding emergency services failing to show up. A friend of mine was telling me about a situation involving her mom a few days ago—her mom started feeling dizzy and just collapsed on the floor. She managed to get her onto a bed, and in a total panic, she called 911, only to be told, "Ma'am, we don't have enough ambulances available to get to you right now." Luckily, it turned out to be nothing life-threatening—probably just a drop in blood pressure or something—but at that moment, nobody knew how bad things actually were. We live in Cleveland.

The second case involves my girlfriend. She lives about 15-12 miles miles outside of Cleveland, so any emergency help has to come from the city since her town doesn't have its own units. She had a nightmare experience when her grandmother suffered a mild stroke. She called 911, and the first thing they asked was "is the woman mobile?" (I mean, how "mobile" is an 88-year-old woman who just had a stroke?). Instead of sending an ambulance, they basically told her to throw her in the car and drive her to the hospital herself.

I haven't had to deal with them personally yet, but hearing these stories honestly shocked me. It's a joke how our healthcare system operates. I want to hear your experiences—are these just isolated incidents, or is it standard practice that they only roll up when someone is literally dying on the floor?

I’ve heard stories that are way more intense than this, though I guess my own experiences have been a bit better. For instance, my former roommate used to deal with incredibly painful periods—on the first day, she literally couldn't move an inch from her bed, was vomiting, and all that. We’d call 911 every single time, and they actually showed up to give her an injection. They weren't exactly racing against the clock since we’d explain exactly what was happening and it wasn't a life-or-death emergency, but they still came out every time. That was back in San Diego, though things might be even worse in Cleveland.

So, in both those cases, the call taker actually got it right.....
The issue is just that people aren't exactly thinking straight when they're calling in a crisis, so they can't really judge how urgent things are. That's what the dispatchers are there for—they're medical pros, so they keep a cool head to figure out how fast help needs to move....
I've used their services a ton over the years, and honestly, I have nothing but good things to say...
One time I called just looking for some advice because my blood sugar was through the roof, and the dispatcher actually sent an ambulance without me even asking, though they did make me double-check the reading first.
People are way too hard on them, acting like they need to be on-site the exact second you hang up, without realizing they’re literally busy saving lives at that moment....

On the old year, we went through a nightmare. My father just suddenly collapsed right before our New Year's Eve dinner. He started struggling to breathe, and we couldn't wake him up. We were doing CPR, everything we could, just praying, only for the paramedics to finally show up after 37 minutes of pure terror. All they could do was pronounce him dead. And look, I’m not even saying we live in the middle of Washington, D.C., right near two major hospitals; I'm saying when we finally managed to get an ambulance on the line, their first move was to bombard us with a mountain of stupid questions about his medical history. They actually had the nerve to ask for his Social Security number while we were grieving.
And what's even more infuriating is how the system handles these things. When someone passes away at home in the evening, you're stuck waiting for a coroner until the next morning. It wasn't until the coroner showed up—who didn't roll in until 11:00 AM even though the man passed at 8:00 PM—that we could even call a funeral home to pick up the body. And then, of course, you're stuck waiting until the afternoon for them to arrive depending on how busy they are. It's ridiculous. Someone needs to say something smart about this once and for all.

If you were staring down ten different scenarios with only one car to handle them, I bet all that fancy theorizing of yours would go quiet pretty fast.

Eric Wright29 said:If you were staring down ten emergencies with only one ambulance on the road, I bet all that high-minded philosophy would dry up pretty fast.

So, how exactly does "philosophizing" explain why an ambulance in Washington, D.C., stuck between two hospitals, managed to show up 37 minutes after someone actually died?
I mean, in 37 minutes, a decent driver could cruise from D.C. all the way to Savannah, let alone cover a few miles...
Honestly, I’m leaning towards the dispatcher being totally incompetent—or maybe just being blunt, they probably couldn't be bothered to leave a massive New Year's feast to go do their jobs.

dustymarlin10 said:How is this "philosophizing" when someone actually died? An ambulance in Washington, D.C., stuck between two hospitals, managed to show up in 37 minutes.
Well, in 37 minutes, a decent driver could make it from Washington, D.C. all the way to Savannah, let alone just a few miles down the road...
I’m leaning towards dispatcher incompetence here—or maybe something even uglier, like the crew was too busy stuffing their faces at some fancy New Year's Eve feast to move.

Maybe they were saving a kid's life during those 37 minutes? I wouldn't call it incompetence; I'd call it a lack of resources. Sometimes you just have to make those impossible calls about who gets help and who doesn't.

Eric Wright29 said:If you were staring down ten different crises with only one way to fix them—say, one car to get you there—I bet all that high-minded philosophy of yours would dry up real quick.

Look, if you had a parent—your dad or your mom—who desperately needed help and you couldn't get to them in time, and then they passed away? You'd see how fast a person's entire perspective on life shifts.

Eric Wright29 said:If you were faced with ten emergencies and only one ambulance, I suspect your little philosophical debates would go silent pretty fast.

Here’s a suggestion: call 911, ask for help, and when they tell you they can't make it, drive past the local hospital and see how many ambulances are actually sitting in the lot.☕

Morgan Williams4 said:Maybe they were busy saving some kid's life during those 37 minutes? Honestly, I wouldn't call it incompetence—it's just a total lack of resources. When you're stretched that thin, you unfortunately end up having to play god and decide who gets saved and who doesn't.

Did they ask for their Social Security number and birth certificate too?
I doubt it...

Washington, D.C., New Year's Eve, around 8 PM. My father is 61 years old. He’s had two heart attacks just last year—one required 1.5 hours of resuscitation (he kept slipping away) followed by a grueling 9.5-hour heart surgery involving two bypasses, an aortic valve replacement, and addressing five existing stents. They did everything they possibly could, but he's lived with severe angina pectoris for years. Right now, he’s pale, drenched in sweat, struggling to breathe, and experiencing sharp chest pains. His pulse and blood pressure are spiking despite using Nitrolingual (which usually keeps his levels low per his cardiologist's orders). He's losing consciousness, and we're having a hard time staying in contact with him. I call 911, identify myself, and they start drilling me for his full name, date of birth, phone number, and address. I tell them he’s already in their system from his first heart attack. After a ridiculous back-and-forth with the dispatcher, I finally get a doctor on the line, who then has the nerve to tell me that "not every chest pain is a heart attack." Well, sure, technically that's true... but when you're dealing with someone with this specific medical history—someone who actually knows what a heart attack feels like because he's survived two of them—instead of sending an ambulance, they tell me, "Just monitor him a bit longer, give him some Tritace and another dose of Nitrolingual, put him in a semi-seated position, and call us back if things change." Honestly, what am I even supposed to say to that?

I called 911 when my dad started crashing. After I gave them the rundown, they transferred me to the emergency room in Opatija because we were out near KASTAV. Once I got through, I had to explain everything all over again to the dispatcher, who then passed me off to a doctor—meaning I had to start from square one *again*. Once we finally seemed to be on the same page, she asked for our address and get this... THEY TOLD ME WE WEREN'T EVEN IN THEIR JURISDICTION😕 She just handed me a landline number and told me to call the hospital in Cleveland. So, I called them, explained the whole mess to some guy, only for him to redirect me to yet *another* line where, for the FIFTH TIME, I was repeating my dad’s info and describing his symptoms. By the time the ambulance actually showed up, 45 minutes had passed. Yeah, my dad died in the meantime.

Thank you to the dedicated doctors out there who study so hard, live, and exist for one single reason—to save lives👍

I'm really sorry about what you went through and everything you lost... but honestly, nobody is defined by just one single thing or one bad moment.

Benjamin Murphy2 said:I'm really sorry about what you went through and the loss you're dealing with, but look—no person is defined by just one single thing or reason.

But what happens when he shows up to work and starts acting like he owns the place? He’s only there because👍

slycanyon22 said:If you actually had a parent who needed help right this second and they died because nobody showed up, your whole perspective would shift pretty fast...

It’s exactly this kind of attitude that drove me and a ton of my colleagues to quit the ER.
When the system fails to organize itself, maybe then people will finally see things from a different angle 😁

The reality is we're working with zero budget, way too few teams, and honestly, patients lie constantly. It’s those lies that cause us to miss the truly life-threatening calls because we're chasing ghosts.

One classic story: they call us screaming that a heart patient is lying on the floor in the hallway after having a heart attack last year. Naturally, we're tearing through traffic in an ambulance to get there. We show up, and the guy is just chilling in bed, looking perfectly fine and smiling at us. We ask what happened, and he tells us he's "fine," even though he's clearly running a fever—which they didn't even bother to check. He claims his wife put potato slices in his socks, and while heading to the bathroom, he slipped on the potatoes and fell 😵 You know how that ends... When I asked why they didn't tell us the truth upfront, the family got all defensive, acting like since he's a husband and father, his behavior is totally justified. We can't just ignore a call like that. Sadly, these people don't face any consequences for being irresponsible and selfish; there's just no mechanism to hold them accountable.
And man, there are plenty of stories like that.

That’s why sometimes we have to dig for the real facts, which makes us look like we're interrogating people to anyone watching from the outside.

I really hope people's perspectives start shifting, even just a little... ☕

This whole debate is heading in the wrong direction... it’s not the ambulance drivers' fault, and honestly, nobody should be calling people out just for "philosophizing." Has the Pope even realized that people actually die because of this? It's all just bad organization and stupid red tape... It's simple... the healthcare system is just a reflection of how the rest of the country is run... mostly when it comes to funding.
We don't have enough ambulances on call. I live in Washington, D.C., and when my Grandfather was passing away, it took the paramedics over an hour to get here!? Seriously, Washington, D.C., taking over an hour!? They finally showed up after we had to call twice just to remind them. The first call was after 40 minutes. I ended up being the one to call them, feeling totally frantic (and I was only 15 at the time). It's the exact same thing as what happened to the other person... someone dies in the evening and just sits there for the next 12 hours because the transport teams don't pick up bodies 24/7.
Just stupid questions... it's hard to even list them.

Another thing... nobody—not even the cool-headed experts behind the scenes—can or should be guessing... because that's all it is, guesswork. Who collapsed from low blood pressure, and who died because of an aortic dissection? NOBODY can know that until the paramedics arrive and get them to the hospital!!!!
I could go on with a billion more bad examples, whether it's the ambulance service (which is way too often jammed up, so you can't even get through) or the hospital staff themselves, their procedures, or even worse, their lack of action!

In short... I'm 25, and I find myself thinking far too often for my age that if things ever go south for me, I'll probably die simply because of how this society works. Even if it's just from low blood pressure, people die from that... the ambulance wouldn't come, people on the street would just assume I'm drunk (even if I am!?), they'd look the other way, and then the hospital would give me a wrong diagnosis.
Yeah, I guess I just have nothing but bad experiences!!! Washington, D.C.!!!

Some lowlifes out in a small town near Indianapolis spent this winter calling 911 just because they knew a snowplow would be clearing the path right in front of their place. They basically used emergency services to clear their own driveway. Of course, nobody got in trouble, and those punks are probably laughing about it right now.
It’s crystal clear to me that there are tons of idiots like this out there—but I’d like to think an experienced dispatcher can tell a complete moron apart from a decent person most of the time. My concern is that instead of gaining actual intuition, dispatchers end up getting so desensitized by dealing with constant stupidity that they forget they’re handling real human lives. They start making snap judgments way too easily. Sure, there are exceptions to that rule, and I'm sure plenty of good ones exist, but I haven't been lucky enough to see them in action.

edit—this comment is directed at goldennomad6

I don't even need a ride; I’m perfectly capable of walking there myself. 😬
But honestly, I’ve ended up trekking back three separate times because of the exact same issue.

Back when I was just a teenager, I spent about six hours sitting in a Washington, D.C. hospital in the middle of the night all by myself. Once they actually decided to see me, they spent two whole hours meticulously poking and prodding before finally sending me on my way.
Then there was this smaller town hospital where they rushed me straight in—buried in a crowd of people—handled the "emergency" in fifteen minutes, and kicked me out without a single test result or follow-up instruction.
The next time I went to that same small-town facility, they actually had the nerve to imply everything was just "all in my head." Once I laid out the actual timeline of events, they suddenly realized there *was* an emergency, patched me up in fifteen minutes, and tossed me out again.

It cracked me up when I showed up at a Washington, D.C. ER at 3:00 AM with a different urgent issue, only for them to tell me I should have gone to a completely different ER on the other side of town.
In the end, nothing turned out to be life-threatening, but there was absolutely no way for me to know that the moment I walked through those doors.

I also remember being at the Klaić clinic with my college roommate. They started yelling at her for no reason at all, and she was such a terrified little sheep. After that, they spent three hours studying her, only to eventually realize exactly what was wrong—something I had figured out the second we left, mostly because I'm a huge fan of shows like House. To make matters worse, they wouldn't even tell us what the diagnosis was, claiming that, well, Jesus God, it involved private parts. 😳 Ever since then, I've been a bit skeptical of doctors. 😬 Oh, and one time I mentioned that something had happened exactly 26 and a half hours prior, and the doctor on duty looked absolutely stunned by my math skills; she spent forever trying to calculate the timing herself. That definitely added to my doubts. I mean, surely they can handle basic IV drip ratios, right? 🙂

I’m also just endlessly fascinated by the fact that in so many ERs, they are still hunched over those old-fashioned typewriters. 🙏

Sarah Mendoza61 said:...
Basically, I'm 25 and I spend way too much time thinking about how, in a society like this, I’d probably just drop dead if things went south before anything else even happened. Whether it's from blood pressure or whatever, you could actually die... an ambulance wouldn't show up, people on the street would just assume I was drunk (I mean, maybe I am!?) and look the other way, and then the hospital would probably give me some totally wrong diagnosis anyway.
Yeah, I guess I just have terrible luck!!! Washington, D.C.!!!

Based on what I see around me and my own experiences, it feels like with a healthcare system like this—and no, it's not a lack of funding, it's just throwing money at all the wrong stuff—the easiest thing to do is just die immediately.
Why?
Because if you're just an "average" guy or a "nobody" (meaning you don't have connections or enough cash to grease some palms), the red tape and complications involved in getting treated are so bad that most people end up dying before they even get actual medical help—so, honestly, dying just makes life easier for the system.
Maybe it leaves more money to treat addicts, drunks, and those "VIP" classes of society.

I get that there aren't many teams on duty and plenty of cases to handle, but honestly, sometimes the behavior at the ER is just straight-up irresponsible.
Here are a couple of my own run-ins with bad practice.
Last winter, I suddenly felt this tingling in my face, one side of my head went numb, and I got hit with massive dizziness, blurred vision, intense nausea, and I couldn't even walk. The ER is just a street over, so my folks drove me because I knew how long the wait would be for an ambulance. The doctor there barely even looked at me. She checked my blood pressure—which was sitting at 80/40—and all she did was ask me to try lifting my eyebrows (which I couldn't do), and that was it. She told me to go drink some chamomile tea, said I was way too young for anything serious to be happening, and sent me home. As I was leaving, I actually lost my balance and slammed into a wall, and she just looks at me and says, "Watch where you're walking." 🙄 By the next morning, I ended up in the ER again, seeing ENT and neurology specialists. Everyone in those departments was shocked that someone could just brush me off like that when I was in that state.
The second case—this past summer while I was vacationing in a small town, I felt this sharp pain near my appendix. I was vomiting and couldn't move my leg without a stabbing sensation. We headed to the ER. Since we were already right there, we saw a nurse putting a sign on the door. I stepped out only to find the ER doors locked with a note saying they’d be back soon because they were out on a call. They hadn't actually left for a call; we had been sitting right outside the ER for two hours before they finally deigned to open the door. Before that, you could hear them laughing and chatting inside the whole time, and nobody reacted even though I rang the bell a few times. It happened to be a holiday that day.
And once, I went to the ER for severe vertigo (shortly after that first episode with the numbness) and the doctor mentioned they call them "the nomads" who live halfway between where I was and the next bigger town. Basically, both teams have about an hour's drive to reach them. In the town I was in, they only had one team, while the larger town had multiple teams working, but they claimed they couldn't go. The single team where I was had to respond to a call, even though the waiting room was packed. The nomads called because a kid had downed four bottles of syrup that day, and they already had one emergency handled... so it's a really messy situation, and I totally see why goldennomad6 wrote what she did. I have a family doctor, so I hear stories about the state of the healthcare system all the time...
It's sad, but it's the truth.