A 75-year-old man died after 25 hospitals refused to admit him to their emergency rooms 36 times over two hours, citing lack of beds or doctors to treat him. How can cases like this be prevented?

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  • -1

    SimondB

    More doctors and more beds perhaps?

  • 0

    MarkX

    I find this a very scary situation, that could effect any or all of us. What happens if you are out on the weekend, and god forbid were in an accident. An ambulance is called, and then they begin to contact hospitals to see if they will accept you or not! There must be at least one main hospital in each region, with at least one specialist on call at all times. Most areas have Dr. Helis(sic) so they can fly you to where ever the doctor is located, and you can receive treatment. I think people should be more outraged at the fact that they pay fairly high insurance premiums, but when they are sick and dying they are refused. What is the point then. It would be better to pay nothing and gamble you won't get sick or get hurt!

  • 1

    cracaphat

    How can cases like this be prevented?

    They can't unless hospitals are forced by law to take on patients in critical condition.

  • 0

    Lowly

    I've heard of this happening in other big cities around the world from time to time, don't know comparative numbers or rates, could be much more common in Tokyo.

    Fact is w/ the aging society, it is going to happen more and more w/o bocoups new hospitals.

  • 0

    Ah_so

    An ambulance is called, and then they begin to contact hospitals to see if they will accept you or not

    This is very much the case with Japan's disorganised healthcare system. I was shocked when I witnessed this fist hand.

  • 0

    philsandoz

    Disgusting and inhuman, but nothing can be done until Japanese hospitals and clinics start thinking as life savers not businesses.

  • 0

    Dillyon Nagano

    sounds serious. How could that many people be in hospitals at the same time?

  • 0

    Lowly

    ah so-

    witnessed?

  • 2

    Virtuoso

    The pretext of not having an empty "bed" for his is nonsense. He needed emergency treatment, not hospital admission. If his life had been saved, they could have found someplace else for him, even if it had taken several hours. I think all 25 hospitals that turned him away should be slapped with a stiff fine, and the amount should be doubled each time they refuse in the future. Or, they can lose their status as an emergency hospital and the government subsidies that go with it.

  • 0

    Marie Joyce Palisoc

    I think it's not good to do that, maybe they just refuse this old man because he cannot pay necessary fee. It's too rude to refuse, and not one or two but 25 hospitals! Incredible! Put yourself on the old man's shoe,what if it was you or your family member, how would you feel?

  • -1

    mitoguitarman

    Prosecute the hospitals for accessory to murder.

  • -1

    ChibaChick

    Simple. Release the grip the doctors have on power here.

    1) Train paramedics properly to be able to provide immediate life saving treatment beyond throwing a blanket over someone. 2) When an ambulance is despatched, the DESPATCHER arranges for the nearest specialist hospital to receive them and contacts the drivers by radio to tell them where to go so valuable seconds/minutes are not lost ringing around. 3) Employ triage nurses in every ER to assess incoming patients and send them for immediate attention or have them wait. 4) Do not allow a hospital to ever turn a patient away - even if it means they lie on a gurney, they are still in the hospital. 5) Arrange a skeleton senior staff to be on call around the clock so that hospitals dont have to turn away patients, and do not allow them to bully the younger registrars into not calling them. If people want to go into medicine they take the rough with the smooth. 6) Stop judging hospitals on their ER mortality rates. Record them, but dont judge them. I met a J woman in my home town in the UK once. She was pregnant and terrified because she had heard how "bad" the hospital was. She was reassured to learn from me that it was a regional centre of excellence that took all the highly complicated cases - hence their apparently worse than average mortality rates. But in terms of skill she could be in no bettter a place. 6)

  • -2

    gaijinfo

    The Free Market Solution is always the best. Hospitals, doctors, paramedics and insurance companies are all restricted by government laws.

    People think that the government can simply wave their magic wand and create free stuff for everybody. They can't. They create national health care, but people abuse it and that creates shortages, a common occurrence when governments interfere with free markets.

    If this guy had private "catastrophic" insurance, and went to a private "for profit" hospital, this wouldn't have happened.

    Private "for profit" hospitals wouldn't be filled up with people that don't really need to be in a hospital. Private insurance companies would ensure that hospitals only got paid for providing real services, so the system wouldn't be abused.

    But the BIGGEST thing (that most people will negative rep me for) is that Health Care is NOT a human right. It is a product that must be provided by people (that could otherwise be doing other things and getting paid) using scarce resources (that could otherwise be used to build other things). It is therefore best handled by the free market, getting the products and services into the hands of the most capable purchasers.

    Whatever argument you make about health care being a HUMAN RIGHT can also be made about food, since we'd be dead without it. But nobody is arguing that I can waltz into the store and grab everything I want simply because I'd die if I didn't have it.

    Anytime the government involves itself in the free market, it messes things up, and this is a prime example.

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