Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

My dad could still be alive, but he's not

jenn.site

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 328 posts

Re: My dad could still be alive, but he's not

#311

Post by stickfigure »

pugio wrote: post #192
stickfigure wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That response time is better than where I live, in the country about an hour north of Oakland. Paramedics are about 30m away. We're a volunteer district and I'm a volunteer, but when I get paged it takes a few minutes for me to get dressed, 5m to get to the station, a few minutes to get the engine started, and ? mins to get to the incident. Realistically, the minimum response time is 15m. Sounds like you keep medbags…

Yes that's right. We have a pretty extensive kit we keep in our car at all times. There's also a mobile app for alerts, navigation, and writing down vital signs and patient care records, and a radio for direct contact to dispatch and other responders.

Interesting. We all have apps and radios, but right now there's only one medical bag per engine. We also have ~50 firefighters in the district, I can't imagine keeping that many medbags organized. But maybe for all the EMR/EMT trained people?

I'll mention it to my superiors. It's a neat idea. I'm sure there's some reason we don't do it, probably insurance related (the district discourages - but does not prohibit - arriving on scene POV).

Re: My dad could still be alive, but he's not

#313

Post by bonsai_spool »

blobbers wrote: post #296
bonsai_spool wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the doctor likely makes the same money for less effort that contributes to the patient dying, because it's hard to prove the link. This makes no sense with how endocrinology works. And OP did not give any evidence of malpractice, so we have no reason to believe that less effort or patient risk regarding the practice of medicine was involved.

Are you unable to engage with the full context of the situation? You repeatedly refer to the OP in your comments but there is a much larger context. Simple logic, see if you can follow: 1. Sophie publishes flawed research (nitroglycerin for osteoporosis) 2. Sophie practices medicine and gives patients nitroglycerin for osteoporosis, with knowledge that her study is a lie. This causes harm to patients, because she kno…

> Are you unable to engage with the full context of the situation?

Absolutely. I am also able to

- Not make attacks at the person making arguments.

- Not assume that the OP's mother received nitroglycerin

> Simple logic, see if you can follow:

You are assuming facts not in evidence, buddy.

> This is malpractice.

This is the absolute definition of a straw man.

Re: My dad could still be alive, but he's not

#314

Post by bonsai_spool »

svnt wrote: post #201
bonsai_spool wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People holding your current naive viewpoint is why we have professional societies with the power to remove licenses/disbar. > Someone who takes the hippocratic oath and then behaves in this manner is not fit to be a caregiver. Medical care is about more than technical competence. > I’d hate to see the state of the flattened world you seem to be arguing for. Please go read about the origins of professional standards…

It is not alleged research fraud. It is admitted fraud. The person is saying they sensed something wrong with her. Dishonest behavior is often discernible in advance if you know what to look for. > Jamal now takes full responsibility and “regrets having exposed patients to the risk of harm by enrolling them in studies which had no value.” There is no pathos in my comment. Your statement is literally naive.

> There is no pathos in my comment. Your statement is literally naive.

You may not understand what pathos means.

Re: My dad could still be alive, but he's not

#316

Post by protocolture »

culi wrote: post #231
protocolture wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australia.

In this post alone there's at least one other comment from someone very familiar with Melbourne's emergency response system deriding its shortcomings. I think it's clear there's always gonna be a ton of variation

Melbs has had a pretty well publicised Ambulance funding crisis.

https://vic.liberal.org.au/news/2024-11-28-riordan-triple-ze...

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/may/19/ambul...

Re: My dad could still be alive, but he's not

#317

Post by tsoukase »

It cannot be taken for granted that arriving at the hospital alive, he would stay alive. A massive heart infarct or other fatal incident (aortic rupture, lung embolism) must be ruled out through an autopsy which is strongly indicated, if not taken.

Such a sudden death usually is predated by alarming symptoms like minor chest pains in the past few days or by a history, like heavy smoking, uncontrolled hypertension/diabetes or a covered anxiety/stress

An ambulance is for emergencies but unfortunately only effective for hour-long ones, not minute-long. For the latter self transport might work in a life or death situation.

Re: My dad could still be alive, but he's not

#318

Post by _DeadFred_ »

burnt-resistor wrote: post #254
evanelias wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even in the US, response times can really vary. As an extreme example, in Jersey City (population ~300k) there were a bunch of incidents a couple years ago where residents called 911 in an emergency and no one answered .

E911 (location information sharing) also doesn't work consistently. The advantages of coming in an ambulance are traffic priority, priority attention in the ER, and medical triaging and coordination. The disadvantages in the US can be extremely expensive to some people if they don't have the correct insurance and inconsistent timeliness. The advantage of coming in a private vehicle are speed (usually), but at the dis…

If you live in the PNW/Hawaii and more than 30 minutes, or you go skiing, hiking, mountain biking, boating, or commute on highways that could take excess ambulance time think about getting a Life Flight membership. Know someone who is active outdoors but don't know what to get the for XMas, might make a good gift?

https://www.lifeflight.org/

Re: My dad could still be alive, but he's not

#319

Post by rufus_foreman »

Where I live, it's common for them to not answer when you call 911.

They were out trying to steal my neighbor's car, and my girlfriend called 911, and no one would answer.

She went and banged on the neighbor's door and told them someone was trying to steal their car, she walked right past the car thieves to do this, which was more than I would do, because I was scared of getting shot.

The car thieves noticed and moved down the block to steal someone else's car. My girlfriend stayed on the line, but yeah, 911 never answered.

You live somewhere where the ambulance is too slow when you call 911, be grateful. Here, they just don't answer. You deal with whatever it is personally.

911 never answered. They were busy with something else I guess.

For the woke/progressives among you, I agree, this was not as bad as the crime wave of the late 1980's and early 1990's. I was there for that crime wave. It was fucking epic. This was not as bad as that, so we're all good.

This is fine.

Re: My dad could still be alive, but he's not

#320

Post by shushpanchik »

scorpioxy wrote: post #114
gobins wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow melbourne is getting that bad! Does your org have a name?

Oh yes. Quite bad and I don't know if things are getting slightly better than "bad" or the media is tired of reporting about it. Up until a year or so ago, an appointment at a GP would take weeks of waiting. Specialist appointments were 1+ years waiting time. This is somewhat better now with the establishment of critical-care clinics operating after hours. This is from personal experience. The emergency rooms often h…

That's not nearly true, at least for Melbourne as a metro area. I never heard of weeks waiting for GP appointment, and I never waited for more that 2-3 days for GP both in east and west suburbs. Usually you have at least 3-5 GP medical centres in 5 km radius, and in half of them appointments are avaliable same day or next day. That's the case now, and was the case 5 and 10 years ago, with only obvious exception during COVID. 6+ years wait could occur, but it would be ~1% of elective surgeries. Basically, elective surgeries are covered by private healthcare, that's the unofficial limitation of Medicare. I got an elective surgery twice, wait was 4-6 months. Just to stress, that's an elective surgery fo non-life threating condition that just affect your quality of life, so it's reasonable to expect people paying up private insurance/hospitals for getting this done quickly.

Emergency 12+ hours wait is not an ordinary situation - could be when there is a combination of very busy night (like Friday during long holidays) and lowest triage category. Every time I attended emergency I was almost immediately triaged and when things were serious, was admitted in minutes. When it was just a cut with bleeding stopped, I was advised after triage that I can wait for 4+ hours or just come back in the morning. All my friends had the similar experience with Melbourne's public hospital ERs.

2% medicare levy is cheap compared to taxes in other countries with free healthcare.

I'm actually very surprised that someone has such negative impression about Melbourne's medical system. There was a short period several years ago, related to COVID, when ambos ramping time could be hours, but that's not not typical for Melbourne, and was resolved pretty quickly.

Post reply on HN