St. Anthony's Medical Center
Hours of Diversion
Nov. 2007 --April 2008
November 56.13 or 7.8 %
December 78.17 or 10.5 %
January 197.93 or 26.6 %
February 126.22 or 18.1 %
March 102.37 or 13.8 %
April 236.2 or 32 %
Looking at the metropolitan area's 24 hospitals, St. Anthony's leads by far in diverting ambulances away from their emergency room. The next highest rate for a hospital in April was SSM St Mary's which was on diversion 98.1 hours or 13.6 %.
14 comments:
What about all of the other Fire services that do not have hospitals in there service area?
Have you checked the other hospitals are you just picking on St. Anthonys. SOUNDS LIKE YOU ARE THE ONE WITH THE PROBLEM:
Mike
Did it ever occur to you some of these patients wanted to go to other hospitals. By the way where did you get these numbers. Please give me a name. THANKS
What the hell does these numbers mean. Looks like a bunch of babbling to me.
If South County has a medical problem, its you people breathing in the air.
I will update the post. It should be clearer. Yes, I've checked out the other hospitals. I like St. Anthony's. They have treated my family quite well and they are a terrific asset to our community!! St. Anthony's has a problem. These are facts! The rate of diversion is shown by how many hours they tell the ambulance services not to come there. If you couple this with the understaffed, inexperienced paramedics we have in Mehlville Fire District, we have serious patient care problems in South County. I guess that last problem was a shot. Ouch.
You can sit here and try to down play the truth but until you or a loved on NEEDS the closest EMERGENCY ROOM then you have no room to down play this problem.
St. Anthonys is on ER diversion EVERY DAY! That is bad.
If you have a heart attack the best medics in the world are not gonna stop that heart from dying. Only a major medical procedure can do that. There is an old saying in heart attacks and that is TIME IS MUSCLE! If you have to drive to west county to get to a ER then your time is running out!
Wake up people.
To the May 11, 2008 7:41 PM poster – Diversion is not about choice but lack of choice. People in south St. Louis County are typically taken to the hospital of their choice by fire service and private ambulances within the rules provided for them by their individual organizations. The only discussion that might occur is one of medical necessity. EMS may try to persuade the patient to go to a specific hospital because their condition may warrant the specialized care available at another facility but more often go where the patient wants to go.
When St. Anthony’s (or any other hospital) goes on diversion, they are saying to ambulance services they will not accept new patients. By agreement, this should only occur when the emergency department is so overwhelmed it can no longer provide appropriate care. This shouldn’t occur because the hospital has failed to hire or schedule sufficient staff. This should typically be a circumstance where the emergency department has recently received a glut of serious/critical patients – all requiring immediate and intensive care. It is not unusual however for an emergency department to be overwhelmed by a volume of non-serious patients who continue to use the hospital as a private doctor’s office for cold and flu issues. Some hospitals have solutions for dealing with those patients. St. Anthony’s has not.
So when you speak of patients wanting to go to other hospitals, they are certainly free to make that choice. They are just not free to choose St. Anthony’s when it is on diversion.
In response to May 12, 2008, 4:54 AM.
Bonnie Stegman of the Mehlville Fire Protection District Board of Directors has stated in a board meeting that Mehlville citizens having to wait 10 minutes or longer for an ambulance is OK. So, if time is muscle then you are a dead man or woman, thanks Bonnie.
P. S. Bonnie is a nurse.
She is a RN and an Medical Educater! If that is what she is teaching the god help us all.
Bonnie Stegman is also in the education department of St. Anthony's
A stroke patient has a short window in which to reverse lasting damage.
Bonnie has a career based on teaching ems and nurses about how critical that window is. She seems to want things both ways, one is the right way, which is to transport patients has quickly as possible, which by the way is taught in advanced cardiac care, and critical care classes, or Mr. Hilmers way. As a veteran RN, I say shame on you Bonnie,you are responsible for teaching new nurses
and ems , who now think it is okay to wait for patient transport. I have to believe you know better, or your classes will now just be a mute point for me.
You want to talk about a real medical emergency, Mehlville fire board just suspended 2 more employees, after 2 were suspended last month. HELLO we can't afford to lose any more personnel our staff is dwindling down with; people fleeing like ants b/c of the bull yit going on with the board, the board suspending people and the district not attracting people. Yes, yes the board has the all mighty power to do as they please. If this is what Hilmer wants to hear then I said it. I t makes me sick to even think a man can stoop to such a low.
Who got suspended?
Who in the hell is this idiot call newspaper boycott. Sound like somewone with no brains and brought up in the farr farr south.
5:38
I heard it was the firefighter's union leader Bob Strinnni and a female paramedic.
10:44
I don't know who the boycott the Call blog fellow is but he's certainly no idiot. It's interestng that you made reference to the south as somewhere where lesser intelligent people might be from. I would like to note that Mike Anthony lives south of here, in Arnold and comes from Florida. In that case the shoe fits.
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