There is nothing to be calm about' | News, Sports, Jobs - Altoona Mirror
"Everyone needs to calm down," states Gary Watters, Executive Director of AMED in the Dec. 22 front page article in the Mirror and references the heart attack patient who waited seven hours as "more the exception than the rule."
I am that heart attack patient.
And I was calm, despite lying on the UPMC Altoona ER waiting room floor in an active heart attack calling out for help. I was calm when the intake personnel told me to take a seat and calm for almost 7.5 hours waiting for care that never came.
Calmness led to no treatment whatsoever and forced me to leave the ER and seek treatment with my PCP. After my doctor confirmed that I indeed had had a heart attack and sent me back to the ER, my husband and I were no longer calm.
And guess what? Our extreme lack of calm helped get me a bed in the ER hallway.
It is clear that Watters does not understand the situation that I and many others have encountered when visiting the emergency room at UPMC Altoona.
Unlike his misguided belief, my situation as outlined in the Mirror was not the exception but the current rule, as we have subsequently learned from not only accounts in the media but also from the dozens of people who have reached out to me and my husband to recount their horrible experiences.
While we can all agree that people needing emergency care should seek it, the fact remains that sitting in the waiting area of the ER for multiple hours with serious, undiagnosed conditions is going to deter people from seeking help.
I can agree with Watters' conclusion that the public should be better educated on the situation at the ER and alternative means of care. However, he is wrong to place this burden on the media.
The obligation rests squarely on UPMC. Despite its status as a multi-billion dollar health care behemoth, the Altoona community has yet to hear from UPMC as to what it is doing to address this terrible situation.
There has been no plan whatsoever disclosed to the public. It is clear that the dedicated staff at UPMC Altoona is frustrated by this, too. When I finally expressed my concerns about the state of things during my ER visit, I was handed a post-it note from a nurse and told to call the phone number she had written. It was the number for 6th Floor Administration, UPMC Altoona President Jan Fisher's office.
I have read numerous articles praising the hard work of UPMC Altoona's exhausted, valiant nurses and other health care workers. And I agree with it all.
Once I got behind the wall of the ER, out of the waiting room, I had no complaints about my care. The nurses were wonderful, dealing with a myriad of crisis situations and difficult patients.
Fisher stated that unlike other ERs, UPMC Altoona does not turn anyone away from the ER. I challenge: Is this really something of which to be proud? By taking non-emergent patients, you essentially are turning people away.
If they are not receiving timely care, they are simply sitting in your ER for hours versus sitting at home.
If they are not experiencing an emergency situation, they are clogging up the waiting room, preventing folks who need emergency care from receiving it.
Fisher stated in the article in which my experience was recounted, that we all need to be more "patient."
Watters states that "everybody is contentious."
What Fisher, Watters and others fail to grasp are the reasons that parents, families, and health care workers have become contentious and impatient.
I wonder if they would counsel the same advice to their spouse, son, daughter, or loved one having a heart attack in the ER waiting room. I think not.
On second thought, contrary to Watters' assertion, everyone does not need to calm down.
Shari R. Routch
Duncansville
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