Well that did prove a thing or two, I'll immidiately forward this to my beloved *hee hee*. A statement from a real, live American beats any TV show. Believe this: The average Dane is far away from your reality. Who are we to judge the authenticism of a TV-show?
Med venlig hilsen / Yours sincerely M. Malmkvist / WWW.PowerCad.dk - A truth told with bad intent Beats all lies you can invent. William Blake, "Auguries of Innocence" -----Oprindelig meddelelse----- Fra: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]Pa vegne af Julia Thompson Sendt: 13. juli 2002 00:38 Til: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Emne: Re: Hospitals in the US "M. Malmkvist" wrote: > > Now, just yesterday I had a debate with me on one side and my dear fiancee > and my blessed mother on the other. > They both bring up USA as a bad example every time we debate the issue of > the European Union. > Their prime example being that no person in the States can recieve any sort > of treatment on a hospital if they can't show cash, credit card or insurance > papers on entry. > Meaning that dying homeless people are asked to expire elsewhere on a daily > basis on American hospitals. > Now the uneducated savage [being myself] wants to know: Is that really true? If you have an injury that demands medical attention, and you can get to a hospital before you die, they will treat you in the emergency room (ER). Once you're admitted, they're not going to kick you out immediately. In Austin, the city pays for Brackenridge to be available for this sort of thing. They won't turn you away for walking in unless the ER is full up, and if you need to be brought in by ambulance, they won't turn you away period. (Your ambulance might get diverted to another hospital or something, but you *will* be treated.) Now, if it's a really cold night and the shelters are full up, it's entirely conceiveable you could freeze to death. That's a separate problem entirely. Also, if you are homeless and have a great distrust of doctors and just won't go to the ER when you need to, that's not the hospital's fault, and that's yet another problem with homeless dying. A number of homeless people are mentally ill and don't get treatment when they should, and a disproportionate number of them probably have great distrust of hospitals or doctors. (Why the mentally ill are homeless is another subject entirely, which I'm not going to go into right now, but which might make for an interesting discussion if enough people are interested in discussing it.) (If you *do* have insurance, you can go to the ER and hassle them about whatever little ache or pain you have, and be a real pain in the @#$% to everyone there. We try not to be pains in the @#$% when we go to the ER, which has happened twice when Sam hurt himself and was bleeding between Friday afternoon and Monday morning. The folks in the Round Rock Hospital ER are nice on the weekend, at least in my experience. Both times, someone with a more serious injury came in after we did and got treated before Sam did.) Do you get the American TV show "ER" there? They show poor and homeless people being taken in and being treated there on a regular basis. If your mother and fiancee have the opportunity to watch it a few times, it gives a bit of a feel for an American emergency room. That'll probably start a whole new round of criticism of the USA for different reasons. :) Julia
