The Emergency Room Quandary
/By Carol Levy, PNN Columnist
I went to the ER only once because my pain was so out of control. The nurses and the doctor were nice, but mostly I was ignored. After waiting what seemed like hours, a nurse came to my bedside with a needle.
"Hold out your arm," she said and injected me with... something. She didn't say what it was.
The pain was so overwhelming, I didn't ask. Whatever it was, it did nothing, not even make me drowsy.
They kept me there for a few more hours, offering nothing after the injection but a cursory, "Sorry it didn't help you" and "Maybe rest will help."
After another hour or so, I left. They were of no help. They could be of no help.
I used to work as an emergency room ward clerk, the first person people saw when they came in. I would run back to get a doctor or nurse if a patient had one of three complaints: chest pain, symptoms of a kidney stone, or a migraine. Those patients were immediately taken to an exam room.
All the other patients I signed in, then directed them to the waiting room. “Please have a seat and wait for your name to be called,” I’d tell them.
Often, they would sit for hours watching as others who came in were immediately taken to the exam room. I had to repeatedly explain that other patients' complaints were more serious and they had to be seen first.
Some of those waiting patients became angry. They had no clue how many patients were already in the exam rooms, or if the doctors and nurses were dealing with critically injured patients from auto accidents or others with serious health issues.
The ones who came in with complaints of “I have a cold” or “I hurt my finger 3 weeks ago” went to the bottom of the list. So too did those whose main complaint — such as chronic pain — was not of immediate concern. It may have seemed like an emergency to them, but to the ER staff it often isn't. An emergency room can never operate on a first come, first serve basis.
Often, as chronic pain sufferers, we have trouble finding doctors or pain management specialists who are willing to take us as patients. Without a doctor we are vulnerable. When the pain gets too bad or feels uncontrollable, our only alternative may be the ER.
The problem with that is the emergency room is not going to help us much, if at all. They don't know our history. They don't know us. When a patient says they don’t have a doctor and insists on getting opioid pain medication, they immediately become suspect. They might be an addict trying to cadge an opioid.
We are so mired in the “opioid crisis” that it blinds us to the other issues that are harming us. We need to look at all the issues that make us vulnerable. Being able to find a doctor should be high on the list of what we need to fight for.
Carol Jay Levy has lived with trigeminal neuralgia, a chronic facial pain disorder, for over 30 years. She is the author of “A Pained Life, A Chronic Pain Journey.” Carol is the moderator of the Facebook support group “Women in Pain Awareness.” Her blog “The Pained Life” can be found here.
