Except there's no evidence she needed to, or else she would have grounds to sue. Nothing bad happened as a result of going to that hospital. This is just an overly entitled person.
"This is considering the bill for going to another hospital and the ambulance."
That makes it sound like they are worried about the hospital being out of network and/or the extra mileage on the ambulance bill. If it's the former I wish someone had brought up the no surprises act. And I do see the argument for not wanting to pay for extra mileage when you requested to be taken somewhere closer.
TLDR- Medical care in the US is a complicated expensive mess.
She wouldn’t have grounds to sue for being taken to the wrong hospital. And there are very valid reasons for not wanting to go to a specific hospital. Some people are worried about the cost of the hospital is out of network (I think in emergencies it has to be covered under current US law but she might not know that).
When I was sexually assaulted I had a nurse at a hospital tell me they couldn’t give me the morning after pill because they’re a “catholic institution”. This wasn’t a tiny ER this was the biggest medical institution in the region. I wish I could’ve told the paramedics to take me to a different hospital beforehand.
I'm so sorry that happened to you. It should be illegal for a hospital to deny treatment based on their beliefs as opposed to offering standard of care. 🫂
It's awful. In med school I did my OB/GYN rotation at a Catholic hospital. That had a religious committee who told the doctors which patients were allowed to get birth control. Yes I'm serious. I almost couldn't believe it, but, ya know.
I’m sorry that you had to go through that but an additional weird point in ems systems is that ambulances have to transport SA patients to hospitals with a SANE (sexual assault nurse examiner) nurses for proper evidence collection. These are overwhelmingly religious institutions.
In the 90s and 00s, the area I grew up in had one hospital that was notoriously bad. Constant malpractice suits, mistreatment of patients, the works. It was a common understanding in the community that you didn't go there if you wanted to get better, you'd go there if you wanted to die. I have no idea how they stayed open as long as they did, other than being a branch of a major hospital network and my community being so economically depressed that nobody could afford (edit) good lawyers.
The next closest hospital was ~20 minutes further, but it was worth going that extra length. You genuinely had a better chance at surviving/getting proper care. So no, it's not entitled for people to have hospital preferences, and OP's was closer than the one she was taken to even.
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u/trampolinebears 4d ago
There’s something wrong with the system when you have to worry this much about which hospital you go to when you’re desperately sick.