Call 911 for Mosquito Bites
A woman recently called the ambulance service to report that her 1-year-old nephew was apparently bitten by a mosquito. She is not alone. “We’ve received probably half a dozen to a dozen from people who have gotten bitten by mosquitoes — no signs of symptoms — but they call 911,” said MedStar spokesman Matt Zavadsky. I get it. The West Nile Virus is scaring some people down in Texas but you would think common sense would prevail. Obviously these people have seen the news discussing the disease so you would hope they would wait and listen for the advice (symptoms, prevention, treatment, etc). Nope. So in our crazy litigious world (thank you, lawyers), an ambulance was dispatched to see the kid. It took paramedics out of service for 45 minutes but the baby was not transported to the hospital. So now more hotlines and public health initiatives are starting to stop the 911 abuse. Or they could charge something (even $10) for the call and that would end it right there. People ALWAYS abuse free. Sorry, I am a little cynical today.
OK, so can we all agree that there are a lot of really dumb / ignorant people out there ??!! who cost the “system” a lot of money. If you’ve found a cure for dumb, get your tux or gown ready for the Nobel ceremony !
I had a patient come to the ER via EMS because she got drunk at a party and lost the cap to her leg bag (that we placed the day before) apparently in her drunken stupor she misplaced the cap when she was draing the bag after her all night bender. and she was so impaired she didn’t remember where she was when it was lost. not till her hangover started to subside did she realize she had lost the cap. that was a nice $1500 cap to a leg bag that the medicade(me and other taxpayers) system had to pay for. but she didn’t have any money (probably cuz the ETOH, ciggeretts, cell phones, fake nails, professionally done hair and fancy care were draining her.
Amen. Woman came in this weekend to the ER with a kid with a … bug bite. I looked at it and said “Yep, it’s a bug bite.”. That was some impressive medicine, for which the taxpayer got the Medicaid bill.