As long as the structures in emergency care are as they are, it is more necessary than ever for every person to weigh up carefully whether their injury really is a reason for a visit to the emergency room.
It’s actually quite easy to understand: In the case of serious injuries or sudden symptoms of serious illnesses, you go to the emergency room. Not with everything else – for example with a slate in the finger or an ingrown toenail.
As if it weren’t hair-raising enough when people go to an emergency room in a hospital for such trifles – if they do it themselves at a time when inpatient emergency care is permanently at its limit, and on top of that because of what they think is something If you complain to the clinic staff that the waiting time is too long and unreasonable, then that is an unparalleled audacity.
Anyone who hears what clinic boss Stefan Huber and emergency room chief Viktoria Bogner-Flatz report about the current situation can’t help but be appalled: The system can’t afford any more patients or staff shortages if it isn’t partially or partially even collapse completely. A head doctor doesn’t just say something like that. It’s the reality. One that everyone should take seriously. Because anyone can suddenly be involved in a serious accident – and your own life then depends on a functioning emergency care system. It would be nice if the doctors in the emergency room didn’t say, “Sorry, no time – we’ve got a slate on our finger.”
Clearly, the current care structure in the outpatient emergency area is badly in need of improvement. This demand can even be heard from the district clinic. And that fact is certainly one reason why some people prefer to go to the emergency room. But as long as the system is the way it is, everyone has to come to terms with it. This means not unnecessarily burdening the current structures.
Instead of whining about long waiting times, those who march to the emergency room with a slate in their fingers should rather work to ensure that politicians take their reform plans more seriously instead of constantly putting them off. The Schiefer patient would have enough time for this. Because a disinfectant spray and a band-aid would have been enough as a medical measure for him. Nobody needs to have completed medical studies or training as a nursing specialist for this care. Anyone can do this at home.