Comments on: 911 Update

By: Cody

Cody — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 12:45:34 +0000

As a side note, the Iowa House has passed a bill that would allow the name of the Department of Elder Affairs to the Department of Aging – DOA.

By: Duke

Duke — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 02:22:25 +0000

Your neighbor’s experience is not an uncommon one. A couple of weeks ago we were called to a nursing home where a patient had been complaining of chest pain for several hours. He was having a heart attack as well. Nursing home reimbursements are so small that these facilities have a hard time paying enough to attract the kind of staff they really need.

By: GiGi

GiGi — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 13:33:04 +0000

THe majority of nursing homes today are understaffed.
Many are only aides.
I had an elderly neighbor who was in a nursing home near by recovering from knee replacement surgery.
She was having chest pain and no one was answering her light,. it took 20 minutes before someone came and by then she was panicked. An Ambulance was called and she was taken to North Memorial.
She has suffered a mild heart attack.
She said the staff that was working the night shift was not very fluent in English, though I don’t think that was the problem she does.
She refused to go back there.
If there were funds to cover a Murse Practitioner, I think you would make less trips to nursing homes.

By: Duke

Duke — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 23:50:02 +0000

If a nursing home patient becomes acutely ill or if a patient’s chronic condition(s)change a 911 call is made and the paramedics respond. Some of the time we merely provide transport. Most of the time we initiate treatments. Nursing home staff just aren’t trained or staffed to deal with acute situations.

By: Margaret

Margaret — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 06:11:40 +0000

You seem to do a fair number of nursing home runs. This was a dimension of paramedic work I was unaware of. I guess I always assumed that nursing homes had nurses or a doctor on call to handle most of the kinds of things you describe.