Wednesday, September 19, 2012

I just got out of the penitentiary

You know it's a bad day when a drunk guy and a mental health patient are bonding around their unhappiness with the ER. They are out in the hall egging each other on.

The drunk is not one of those people who happily sleeps it off. This person is wide awake and unhappy. They just can't understand why they can't just leave. IT MUST BE THAT pint of vodka you chose to partake in earlier today and then proceeded to pass out on the grass around the corner from the hospital. Then some good Samaritan called 911 and the medics were obligated to bring you in. When they gave me report they said you were, "a nice guy". The niceness didn't last very long.

First sign of trouble: you peed in your pants. Then you came out of your room demanding to use the phone, where you proceeded to rant about us, the unfairness of life (with a few MFers thrown in). You plead with the "girlfriend" to come and get you. Of course she won't. She's fed up.
I had you change into a gown to get you out of the wet clothes, but you couldn't seem to get the concept of CHANGE YOUR CLOTHES...When you did get them changed, you had the wet ones back on in a couple of minutes. I gave you food to try to speed up the sober up process - ended up on the floor, a milk puddle on the chair, which you proceeded to sit in. Okay now we got pee and milk going on the clothes.

Of course detox, had no beds. Does detox ever have any beds?!!! So you were ours until you got a ride or sobered up enough to go.

You got louder and louder, wanting to use the phone over and over, getting mad at security for watching you. At one point you shouted at security: "I just got out of the penitentiary. I don't need nobody watchin' me".

A couple of visitors response to your antics: "I'm just enjoying the show". "You need to call the police".

Meanwhile while you waste everyones time, a guy down the hall is not doing well with a GI bleed, a man a couple doors down is gasping for breath, someone is having a heart attack, a woman has metastatic cancer.

There is nothing we can do about people like you. In our city public drunkenness is not a crime. If it was the jails would be filled So your local ER acts as a detox center to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars a year. Ever wonder why your insurance is so high? This is part of it.








5 comments:


  1. The cost of a drunk-tank has to be cheaper than cost (non material price paid by both patients and staff) of the emergency department.

    Who is paying the hospital to look after the drunks? You would think they would want to pay a lower cost.

    The hospital can't refuse? So the hospital has to invent and make a drunk-tank area.

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  2. How do Fix DT's, stop the ambulance at the liquor store, pick up a 1/5 and turn them loose

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  3. This drunk should have been in jail sleeping it off instead of taking up your time.

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  4. The drunk should sleep on the street!

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