SacMomsClub.com

I have never seen Michael Moore's movies let alone the one called "Sicko", but I am a little familiar with his concept. After my experience last night, I am tempted to become a fan! I spent five hours waiting in an emergency room just to get my son a cast. Now I know this is nothing compared to the 10+ hours some of the other patience had been there, but all we needed was a cast! To top it all off, we had been in the emergency room just the night before do to my son breaking his wrist and instead of giving him a cast then they splinted him up and sent us on our way with a referral for an Orthopedic Surgeon. Since when do they not put cast on in all emergency rooms? Now I would have never gone back to the emergency room just for a cast if I could have found an Orthopedic Surgeon that would have excepted our insurances. You see we have straight medical and Western Health Advantage through my boys' father. Now these insurances are fine with the PCP we see, but I could not find a specialist that took both insurances and could not afford to just use one. So I called my PCP and asked them if they could get me a referral; they had to wait for the emergency room to send them the xrays before they could do that and this is where the royal run around started. Finally, they informed me that my best bet would be to go to UCD Emergency room to get the cast. This was fine until we got there and I saw how the health care system in California works. There were people there that had been waiting 10+ hours to see a doctor! You had to wait in line to be triaged and then wait again for registration and then wait again to see a doctor and then wait again to get xrays (Again, we had already done this at during our first emergency room visit and yes I had the copies, but they were not good enough!) As if all the waiting was not long enough, it was all being done while my son and I were both hungry and thirsty, but my son was told he could not eat until he saw a doctor. I made a pack with him; if he could not eat or drink then I could not eat or drink. Well after about 3 hours of waiting we broke the rules and got a drink and then about an hour later got some peanuts. When low and behold our name was finally called to go in the back! Now usually you get a room, but we did not we were instructed to sit on a bed in a hallway. After he saw the doctor, I asked if he could please eat; we thought we were going to get to, but just as they placed the tray in my son's lap they took it away and said he had to you guess it WAIT! Well finally after a 5 hour wait my son got his cast and he was able to eat! Oh and did I mention I had to pay $6 to park! What is the deal with our health care system.