The Ridiculousness of Rockyview General Hospital
First i would like to say that if you ever plan on going to emergency i reccommend you read this. Because I'm pretty sure it will save you time and pain.
So about a week ago i was lying in bed with my girlfriend studying for a midterm the next day. It was going great, she was sleeping and i was starting to think that an A for a grade was achievable.
I should mention that my girlfriend was diagnosed with Lupus about a year ago.
At about 11:30 Pm, my girlfriend was awaken by sudden pain in her chest. (Being only 20 years old I highly doubted she was having a heart attack, and thought it was probably a pinched nerve, which I get quite regularly). Suddenly she said she felt like her heart just skipped a beat. I laid my ear to her chest and listened to her heart, sure enough she was having a irregular heart beat. It would be normal for a little while, then slow down and right as I though it couldn't get any slower it did a triple beat in less then half a second. Then speed back up to normal for five minutes, then repeat.
We proceeded to Rocky, were we told the triage nurse about our night. In the midst of telling the nurse she took her pulse and my girlfriend told her how she was having trouble breathing whenever this triple beat happened and she felt like there was pressure in her chest. The nurse responded with
" well your breathing fine now so it must not be that bad"
I resisted my urge to go in there and say something.
Then my lady continued to tell her that I had listened to her chest and heard the strange triple beat. What the nurse said next pissed me right off, saying " well does your boyfriend have a stethoscope, or is he trained in the medical field?"
Yeah, thanks you cunt, I have only been living for some twenty odd years and yet you expect that I wouldn't know what an irregular heart beat is? WTF is wrong with you.
So after the whole conversation she told us to sit down. I though OK, if it happens again we can come up and tell her, thinking it would only be a matter of time before we got to see a doctor after that.
I really don't know what I was expecting after coming there about 6 months last time, with abdominal pain and blood in her urine. After about a 6 hour wait, the doctor said it was probably craps and told us to go home. While 2-3 days after she has a complete kidney failure and was rushed to emergency.
Back to the story.
While i recognize that we do have an overcrowded health care system, you would think that a 20 year old woman with chest pain would be taken pretty seriously, or at least more seriously then a person with a broken arm.
While we were sitting, the triple beat happened again, so we walked back up to the triage nurse and continued to tell her about it. She proceeded to take the pulse for about 30 seconds, and while doing so my girlfriend explained to her that if we went back and sat down it would be too late for the nurse to witness the triple beat and we would still be back at the beginning. She continued to tell her to sit down.
We waited for about two hours ( of which time no one else was admitted) and decided that we were going to go home because no one else was being taken in, and after the two hours we were still at the back of the line. She was feeling a little bit better although the irregular heartbeat continued and i had a midterm the next morning, and was planning to stay up all night studying, and maybe get an hour of sleep or two, so i could watch over her and make sure nothing happened in her sleep. While trying to leave the nurse continued to bitch saying " you have a very serious condition, and we are trying our best go get you examined, but if you want to go home you are either making a mistake or it must not be a serious problem anyways"
How about this you dumb triage nurse, if you realize she has a serious condition how about you start taking her serious and bump her up in front of the people with broken arms and a cough, instead of leaving us behind the 17 bloody people in front of us.
Next day the heart beat continued, and it was suggested that we go to the new clinic on 12 ave and 4 th street. I think its called Sheldon Shimir clinic or something, and i would like to say props to everyone there.
after only a two hour wait we were admitted and received a ECG heart monitor, constant watch by a nurse, Xray, and blood and urine work done within the next 4 hours. All the while being taken completely serious everyone there
I again would like to thank everyone at the clinic for being professional and actually giving two shits to figure out what was wrong.
The pain ended up being inflammation in her chest lining which was causing a PVC. While i cant remember what exactly that stands for its something to do with a once in a while heart beat.
I would like to end by saying if you have something wrong and need to go the emergency go to the clinic on 12 th ave and 4th street. I will almost guarantee you will get in faster and they will actually find out what the problem is instead of trying to feed people though. [/rant]
Last edited by GT.....O?; 03-18-2009 at 12:01 PM.
"Speed has never killed anyone, suddenly becoming stationary… That’s what gets you."