Medical MIStreatment
I was amazed, to a point of disbelief, while reading your story of a heart transplant trip the other day (Jan. 17), because my last encounter with the medical profession did not come remotely close to that of your story.
On Dec. 23, my wife went to an emergency room at the local hospital because of an abdominal pain. There was a total of 15 patients waiting when we arrived. We waited for six hours, only to see a couple of patients treated. We finally left the hospital because it did not look like any doctor would see us. We called to make an appointment with my wife's physician, who was not able to see her until Jan. 13, 2000 -- a 20-day wait. On the appointment day, we had to wait 30 minutes before seeing the doctor, who spent five minutes examining my wife.
I now wonder whether our recent encounter with the medical profession was just an isolated, bad-luck incident, or the story in your paper and other heart-warming TV episodes in which doctors go above and beyond to care for their patients are just fairy tales.
-- Julian T. Nguyen, Reseda
Los Angeles Daily News, January 23, 2000