Have you ever passed out in a socialist country?

in my experience you would be lucky to have proceeded past the waiting room within 6 hrs, but then again, that might be due to all the beds being occupied by hungover dudes

Vicarious said:
It doesn't have anything to do with ability to pay, there are strict guidelines and regulations they have to follow.
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typical... /yay for capitalism/ xDxP amirite
 
I think you are lucky you didn't end up in the drunk tank. Yea, you shouldn't have expected to sleep it off at the hospital. They treated you the best they could. You could walk and talk and weren't in any danger of dying. Your post sounds selfish. I am sure there were seriously ill people who needed help that hadn't drank themselves voluntarily into a stupor that needed their assistance. Yea Hippocratic Oath!
 
I doubt if it would have made a difference if you were in a socialist country, because I assume free lounging service is not part of health care.
 
Peppermint said:
I doubt if it would have made a difference if you were in a socialist country, because I assume free lounging service is not part of health care.
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Yay for someone seeing what my OP was about.


For anyone insinuating that Im more important than people with actual illnesses, thank you and re-read my OP.

Also, Im not a dude.
 
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vdwxmskkntz said:
How does this happen? O_o
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I know, right?

Well, ive thought about it.
1) I was alone. my friend bailed on me last minute. She said she was sick, and ill trust that I guess.
2) I was very nervous. I never drink for entertainment, just to calm myself. I kept trying to measure my drunkeness by how comfortable I was talking to strangers. It gets easier when drinking, but I think I learned yesterday that it never fully goes away for me because I was trying to drink the uncomfortableness away, and yeah, no.
3) I am a binge eater (think bulimia but no throwing up), and that translates into binge drinker sometimes.
4) I never drink, so idk how much I can handle (OBVZ).
 
And for the ones who wonder about my insurance... I have shitty, foreign insurance. They were gonna have me do a deposit because they thought I didnt have insurance, but luckily I was able to get out of that after providing them with insurance info.

I do not worry about the bill. either my insurance will cover it, or i wont pay it (or someone will pay for me). Credit is not an issue for me.

Ok, so, my main point with this thread: I wanted to see if I would have gotten better treatment had I been in a socialist country. The health care thing seems sensitive to a lot of people, but lets try to be civil about it, shall we? I guess it has to do with a difference in approach. I grew up in Sweden, and I had universal health care and did not worry about anything. Then I came over here and saw how much trouble people were having, how much worry there is. And the thing about having hospitals being just straight up businesses is that money rules. I dont think thats okay. Me having to leave coincided with them learning about my shitty insurance, so I have my suspicions.

I talked to my cousin in Sweden about this, because I remember a similiar thing happening to her. She said that while she doesnt remember everything (it happened a long time ago), she was there for almost the whole day afterwards and got to sleep plenty. SO YEAH. Either she got lucky or either the socialist system is more humane (wasteful, cater to drunks, or whatever people wanna call it) in that aspect.

As for something else, I do not by any means wanna take up a bed that someone else needs more than me, but the hospital was not busy and they had enough room for me elsewhere in the hospital.
 
Oh, oh, oh, forgot one thing!

They gave me information on acute alcohol posioning, and it had instructions on how they were to treat me. It said to let the patient sleep 8-10 hrs and to give pain killers if the patient wants them. Doesnt really correlate with what actually happened.

I think this calls for an experiment. 1) Switch insurance to a really amazing one. 2) Drink so much I end up in the ER. 3) See how they treat me now.
 
Considering that someone who is drunk is more vulnerable than average and it'd be easier to take advantage since they're not as aware or in complete control of their actions, it would make sense to provide them with somewhere to sober up so to speak, just to make sure they're alright rather than packing them up and sending them off especially if they're new to the place. But I guess the hospital would have to consider the possibility that someone could be using them for a place to stay rather than get medical help. Campassion and consideration would say, let the person sleep it for a few hours at least before sending them on their way. It probably also depends on the type of facility, how large it is.

I'd be curious as well about the difference in health care systems across the world.
 
Carrie said:
Considering that someone who is drunk is more vulnerable than average and it'd be easier to take advantage since they're not as aware or in complete control of their actions, it would make sense to provide them with somewhere to sober up so to speak, just to make sure they're alright rather than packing them up and sending them off especially if they're new to the place. But I guess the hospital would have to consider the possibility that someone could be using them for a place to stay rather than get medical help. Campassion and consideration would say, let the person sleep it for a few hours at least before sending them on their way. It probably also depends on the type of facility, how large it is.

I'd be curious as well about the difference in health care systems across the world.
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Yes, I share this view in how to care for alcohol posioning.
I am surprised that so many others do not.

I was still drunk when I woke up (lol), and hung over, and didnt know my way around.
 
We have a national health service in the UK and i know a number of people (including myself....looks sheepish) who have recieved treatment after binges for a range of injuries ranging from cuts and broken bones to stomach pumps etc. Even if you're drunk you should still recieve treatment because you may have other injuries and also some conditions can even resemble drunkeness.

The NHS will treat you and it won't cost you a thing. We all pay for it through our taxes but everyone will use it at some point.

There's a book called 'The Spirit Level: Why More equal societies always do better' by Richard G Wilkinson and Kate Pickett which looks at peer reviewed statistics and finds that people in more equal societies are generally better off

The UK however is NOT an equal society and doesn't do to well in the statistics and neither does the US

The NHS is a wonderful thing but there are right wing elements in the UK that want to see it privatised and have undermined it whenever and however they can. There is a battle on right now to save it. The jobs of 50,000 nurses are currently on the line. There are going to be strikes by upto 3 million public sector workers later this month and there is a campaign by social activist group 38 degrees and their supporters in the public to fight changes to legislation that will lead to the break up of the NHS (http://38degrees.org.uk/)

What people need to realise is that: the various strikes, the student protests, the G20 protests, the occupy movements are all bound up in the same struggle because the things they are campaigning against are the results of the same policy: neoliberalism

p.s i hope you're ok
 
You got 6 hours in the hospital? When it happened to me they kicked me out as soon as I came to. Rude service sounds about par for the course with what I experienced.
 
Listen. Seriously, listen. Just because I am an INFJ does not mean I always pass out from drinking. That has only happened to me once, and in that case, it is ambiguous whether I passed out or whether I just decided to fall asleep on the bathroom floor. I think it was the latter.

I don't think I've ever been in a hospital for any treatment since I broke a bone when I was 10.

Edit: Is it surprising they would be rude to you? I mean, nurses already have a hard job and hospital administrators are already indifferent; the fact that you did it to yourself just makes it worse.
 
Dragon said:
Listen. Seriously, listen. Just because I am an INFJ does not mean I always pass out from drinking. That has only happened to me once, and in that case, it is ambiguous whether I passed out or whether I just decided to fall asleep on the bathroom floor. I think it was the latter.

I don't think I've ever been in a hospital for any treatment since I broke a bone when I was 10.

Edit: Is it surprising they would be rude to you? I mean, nurses already have a hard job and hospital administrators are already indifferent; the fact that you did it to yourself just makes it worse.
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LOL!
I was waiting for someone to take the infj + passing out thing seriously, and when i started reading i was like MAYBE THIS TIME OH WAIT NO NEVERMIND.

and im glad im not the only bathroom passer outer. im glad youre just as classy as i am.

and yeah i guess youre right about the nurse thing.
 
aerosol said:
Yay for someone seeing what my OP was about.


For anyone insinuating that Im more important than people with actual illnesses, thank you and re-read my OP.

Also, Im not a dude.
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I'm sorry. I just looked at your ava at first glance and quickly picked he. Apologies. :)
 
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I'm not sure about different national healthcare systems in this case...

I'm also a little confused about a part of the story. Don't take this the wrong way and please correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like they gave you the treatment you required and that which was available, after which you were no longer in need of medical care but simply needed a bed? In which case, a hotel room or something to the equivalent would perhaps have been more fitting? I'm not suggesting that they didn't kick you out because they could no longer make money off of you, but why pay for a hospital stay when you don't need a hospital stay? Unless you did still require further medical care but it didn't sound like it from your OP.

I'm trying to tie these two together... The thing with publicly funded healthcare is that there are usually wait times, backups, shortages of beds, etc. Not always, but usually, especially in the E.R. So I'm not that surprised you weren't allowed to stay, unless the place was surprisingly quiet. I'm also not surprised you weren't admitted onto another ward. I imagine that's probably the only way in which you could have secured a bed (without having inside connections), and well they wouldn't go through the process of an admission and discharge, considering what that entails in terms of administration and staffing, if there really was no need to. I imagine this might particularly be the case for publicly funded hospitals, which are likely to be short of medical staff anyways and certainly not overstaffed.

These are pretty much my speculations. But again, I'm really not sure.
 
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Soulful said:
I'm not sure about different national healthcare systems.

I'm also a little confused about why you should have stayed in the hospital. Don't take this the wrong way and please correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like they gave you the treatment you required and that which was available, after which you were no longer in need of medical care but simply needed a bed? In which case, a hotel room or something to the equivalent would perhaps have been more fitting? I'm not suggesting that they didn't kick you out because they could no longer make money off of you, but why pay for a hospital stay when you don't need a hospital stay? Unless you did still require further medical care but it didn't sound like it from your OP.
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Oooohhh Soulful laying the smack down. Oh how you have changed, dear girl.
 
Soulful said:
I'm not sure about different national healthcare systems in this case...

I'm also a little confused about a part of the story. Don't take this the wrong way and please correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like they gave you the treatment you required and that which was available, after which you were no longer in need of medical care but simply needed a bed? In which case, a hotel room or something to the equivalent would perhaps have been more fitting? I'm not suggesting that they didn't kick you out because they could no longer make money off of you, but why pay for a hospital stay when you don't need a hospital stay? Unless you did still require further medical care but it didn't sound like it from your OP.

I'm trying to tie these two together... The thing with publicly funded healthcare is that there are usually wait times, backups, shortages of beds, etc. Not always, but usually, especially in the E.R. So I'm not that surprised you weren't allowed to stay, unless the place was surprisingly quiet. I'm also not surprised you weren't admitted onto another ward. I imagine that's probably the only way in which you could have secured a bed (without having inside connections), and well they wouldn't go through the process of an admission and discharge, considering what that entails in terms of administration and staffing, if there really was no need to. I imagine this might particularly be the case for publicly funded hospitals, which are likely to be short of medical staff anyways and certainly not overstaffed.

These are pretty much my speculations. But again, I'm really not sure.
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Yeah that's pretty much it.
I guess I was asking for too much, lol.

It was weird, though. If I feel really bad (hung over, still drunk, far from home) and they have room for me (which they totally did), then why not let me stay in a different part of the hospital. There's also what Carrie addressed, that I was way more vulnerable at this time. And Im surprised that they didnt do some kind of psychological evaluation of me. Maybe I was trying to kill myself? I got the bare minimum and was asked to leave shortly upon them finding out about my not-so-great insurance.

I know my cousin had a better experience than me, but then she lives in socialist Sweden. They evaluated the heck out of her.
 
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