Health care needs to start being priority
We are lucky to have one of the top medical facilities in the country right here on campus. Or so you would think. Last Friday night, I spent six hours in the emergency room at the UCLA Medical Center and never got to see a doctor.
I got the opponent goalkeeper’s knee in my stomach during an intramural soccer game on Thursday night. It didn’t really start hurting until later that night but I thought I should just get some rest. When it started swelling and still hurt the next day, I decided to go to the emergency room. I got there at 5:30 p.m. After waiting for about two and a half hours, I got to see a triage nurse. She took vital signs and asked a few questions.
Then it was back to the waiting room. At 11:30 p.m., six hours after my arrival, I was still waiting with no sign that I would get to see a doctor any time soon. Many others had left before me ““ particularly blue collar-types that presumably had to work the next day. Frustrated and tired, I decided to leave. I am hoping that I did not puncture any major organ because I need to pay bills and can’t afford to spend my days waiting to never be examined.
If UCLA Medical Center is one of the top hospitals in the country, I figure I am lucky that I never had to go to Martin Luther King Jr. before it was shut down. I have lived in five countries, including numbers 78 and 79 on the Human Development Index (the U.S. is number 12), and have never experienced anything like this. Let’s hope that the next president will really make health care a priority. Until then, better make friends with the medical students because apparently, if you really have an emergency, the medical center won’t be able to help.
David Julian Zimmer
MPP/MBA Candidate 2009