First-hand experience in emergency rooms in Canada

A few days ago in the middle of the night, I was awakened by a sharp pain in my lower back and abdomen. I thought it was acute gastroenteritis. I wanted to say that I have experience with this, so I did a series of stretching exercises that I invented to deal with gastroenteritis. It began to extend to the thighs, and the lower back began to feel hot like a fire. This is really not right. Do I really want to experience the legendary "waiting for more than six hours" emergency room during the COVID-19 period?

However, when the pain has reached a level that I have never experienced in my life (after all, I have never given birth to a child, the level is a bit low), I finally decided to go to the hospital at about 3:30 and go to the emergency room, and I should go to the hospital at about 4:00.

Before entering, there is a round of information registration. My husband needs to show a vaccine certificate, and I am a patient, but I don’t need it. After all, the doctor has to treat the patient no matter what.

After entering the waiting area for the injury examination, the waiting began. There were no patients, so we waited at the door for 20 minutes. The first nurse asked me, what is the pain level now? Although the pain was so painful that I had nowhere to put my hands and feet, because I didn't know what kind of pain was tenth grade pain? So let's say it's about 7 or 8. My husband helped me to answer 7 out loud. 7 is obviously not enough pain. The nurse took me to the further waiting area and said I was next.

How long is the time from the previous to the next? Not to mention that I was experiencing the strongest wave of pain in the whole night, and I was in a cold sweat. Two new patients said that the pain was grade 10, and they both went in. One was sent in because of excessive drug use and lay on a chair to sleep. The homeless man suddenly lost his breath, so that the waiting room was busy for a while. Between life and death, the severe pain finally let me go, and it gradually subsided. At 6:00 in the morning, I finally entered the emergency room and waited further .

The concept of the emergency room is similar to the prison described by Foucault: the counter is surrounded by a semicircle against the wall, and doctors and nurses go in and out in a small square to find information. Put on the curtain. This arrangement is very good, and the medical staff can easily control the situation.

I was put on a chair by the door and sat for another 10 minutes before being brought to the bed in the compartment by the doctor. After doing the first palpation, she said that it shouldn't be a big problem, and the blood test was first. "You go and sit over there!" She pointed to a chair in the corner. I looked at the hospital bed with nostalgia. When I was sleeping, I was woken up by pain before I could fall into a deep sleep. Coupled with the excruciating pain outside, I was almost collapsed. The doctor's words "not enough beds" broke my extravagant hope of lying down.

In fact, there were still several clinics that were empty at the time, but the principle here is obviously that if you can still sit, you can only sit. An old gentleman was pushed in by a wheelchair, and after 1,800 stitches were sewn from thigh to calf, he could only sit there and wait.

When the blood was drawn, the nurse slipped me four painkillers. I didn’t know what it was, but they suppressed the severe pain. Of course, the blood test had to wait. Problem, now have a urine test. Eh, I said why can't we do both at the beginning? So another hour to wait?

Later, because the situation was more serious than the doctor imagined, she decided to take a CT scan for me, God! Is it serious enough to use such an advanced machine to check? I sat on the bench (just grabbed) and the life marquee in my head started running.

Fortunately, this worry was soon interrupted by a series of F**K You. A burly and burly nurse in front of him was asking in a gentle tone where the drunken homeless usually went. He was holding a small book. Like a police detective, trying to find the most comfortable area for the homeless to move, then help him find a shelter, call and ask for a bed. It's a pity that the shelter's people and the homeless have conflicted about the information on the phone. The nurse has to contact other social workers for help, and persuade the homeless person according to the persuasion: the cold winter is here, next time if you get drunk on the street, you may not be so lucky. In contrast to the waiting area outside, the hospital security guards treat people who come to the hospital to sleep because of the cold weather, and the nurses are really patient.

Oh wait, didn't you mean to do a CT scan? How can there be time to describe the drama of this long gentle nurse ?

Yes, I've been sitting on that bench since the doctor told me to do a scan, and the doctor on duty is off. I sat like this for almost an hour before a nurse came to ask me: Have you done a CT scan? She's just me walking along the red line on the ground, with rows of purple chairs at the end, and someone will call me.

I followed the map and came to an area where sundries and food were obviously shipped, but the purple chair was there, so I had to sit down and people came and went, because the door to the hospital from the emergency room was on the left. In the morning, the medical staff on the morning shift are all holding a cup of Starbucks coffee, my stomach is rumbling with hunger, and the patient's breakfast on the rack looks delicious.

Of course, another 20 minutes passed until an old old nurse came back and forth in front of me three times and stopped to ask what I was waiting for? After figuring out that I was going to have a CT, I asked my name and walked through the door, and a few minutes later I finally lay down on that CT scanner.

After the operator explained in English that the machine would instruct me on what to do later, he put me under the blue semi-circle. I was fully focused and waited for the machine to speak to me. Suddenly, "please breathe in" and "please breathe normally." ”, after a long wait, I heard the machine speak Chinese to me without warning, and I almost cried (it turns out that waiting can make people sentimental).

After filming, I reluctantly said goodbye to the machine, went back to the bench again, turned on my phone, and wanted to send a message to my husband that I had finally done the inspection. Unexpectedly, he heard ding ding dong dong: just now two people were fighting and were sent away by security, two people came back to fight, the police brought the prisoner, and the prisoner wanted to escape! The prisoner was finally subdued, and a drunk man got a headbutt.

That's right, because my pain is not so painful that I need to stay in bed, I should avoid unnecessary contact during the epidemic. My husband can't come to the emergency room to accompany me. He can only sit in the triage area and wait from four in the middle of the night. Helpless to interpret the farthest distance in the world.

Fortunately, now just need to wait for the CT scan results.

An hour has passed.

Two hours have passed, who would have thought that I could not finish writing this experience after typing thousands of words?

Finally, the doctor on the morning shift came over and told me the results of the CT scan, and explained that I had already sent all my information to the family doctor, and the follow-up tracking and treatment would be fine.

The nurse came over to pull out the needle in my hand, and I staggered out of the emergency room. Facing the noon sun, my husband stood up and opened his arms and walked into his arms, as if from a lifetime.

Last but not least, although the emergency room of this hospital in Toronto looks similar to the one in the American TV series, the billing is very different: Canada has universal health insurance, and you will not be on the verge of going to the emergency department Bankruptcy, in fact, compared with the high (?) registration fees of major hospitals in Taiwan, you don't even have to pay the registration fees, you only need to show your health insurance card.

How much does Canadian health insurance cost per month? There is basically no monthly fee in Ontario, but don't be too happy, because health insurance is paid by your high income tax, so it is different from the egalitarianism that the richest man in Taiwan and ordinary office workers pay. of people obviously pay more for the system, while the disadvantaged can pay less or not at all.

However, Medicare does not cover drugs for adults. This also blocks the abuse of health care to some extent, and even if the medical behavior does not need to be paid, after everyone has had this kind of emergency room experience in their life (this is still because of Covid-19, there are not so many people), I think next time unless really I'm dying, or I probably wouldn't go to the emergency room again.

The original text was published in vol., in addition to writing .

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