My mother's surreal, harrowing experience with "the best health care in the World"

[zulchzulu]

My mother has been in a battle with cancer over the past couple of years and has had the good fortune to have her husband with very good coverage (USAA) and Medicare as a supplement.

It's been a long, harrowing journey and we had the good fortune of getting very good news about her cancer being in remission and the battle seemed to be over for the time being.

Then she had a dizzy spell and was taken to a local hospital to get it checked out. It turned out that some cancer has escaped from her mid-region to her brain, as apparently is what happens after lots of radiation and chemo therapy.

So she went to the hospital with my father and a couple of my siblings.

They waited for 8 hours.

During that time, there was a bell ringing in the receptionist office non-stop. After about an hour, my father asked what that bell was for.

"It's for patients who need help and are requesting that a doctor come quickly", chuckled the receptionist as she went on surfing the net or whatever.

It became absolutely surreal for my family after a while. It was as though the patients were ringing the bell and nothing was getting done. This was not a large hospital.

Then some staffer walked in the room and, without a word, handed out boxes to everyone who was in the waiting room. It was a ham sandwich, some chips and a cookie. No water... just some box without an explanation.

After waiting hours for any service, my mother and father decided to go to another hospital nearby.

After about an hour after the request, the ambulance drove up (they had to transfer my mother to the other hospital) and one of the staffers who actually worked at the hospital asked my mother why she decided to come to that hospital. The ambulance driver essentially seemed to inform my mother that it was not the safe thing to do.

This little event is but one chapter in many where first opinions could have killed her and where she has seen many cancer patients at the start of her journey not make it through.

Fortunately, my mother has a great circle of support in her battle. I fear for those that don't have the same level of support in their health battle for their life.