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PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- A school counselor suffering an apparent heart attack died in a Philadelphia emergency room after waiting nearly 80 minutes for help - and a trio of homeless drug addicts nearby stole his watch instead of seeking aid, police said. Joaquin Rivera, 63, died before seeing a triage nurse at Atria Health's Frankford Campus over the weekend, police said.

DAVIE, Fla. — When the sharp pain shooting through Lisa Strong's back got worse, she thought it was another kidney stone and expected the discomfort to pass. This time was different. Through a series of mistakes, miscommunications and misdiagnoses, she wound up having her arms and legs amputated. She sued the doctors, who essentially blamed one another for what everyone involved agrees were profound errors. Everyone except the jury that ruled against Strong.

He came in at 1 in the morning, and I triaged him. His chief complaint: "Well, my chest kind of hurts, and my girlfriend made me come in." His girlfriend sat next to him, appearing fretful and unhappy. The patient was a 37 year old who appeared to be in general good health. I was tired. It had been a long shift so far, having been spent sticking IVs into dehydrated babies suffering from GI bugs that have been particularly vicious this year. I was shipping demented elderly people to the floor at a record pace, and the nurses in...

Christmas Eve was a solid-gold nightmare. We had one open bed in the entire hospital, and the private ambulance services were bringing in critically-ill people without calling us, because they knew if they did, we would divert them to hospitals that we knew had open beds. But they make their living on calls, not on mileage. (This may differ in other states. Armed & Christian may correct me on this point.) So after the fifth "patient dump," the staff in my ER and the private ambulance services were not experiencing a lot of good will toward each other. And of...

Last night a "GDFD" (get drunk, fall down) was brought into the Emergency Department by aid car. She arrived, as most drunks do, bellowing obscenities and calling the staff vile names. And this young lady was also a spitter. Nice.The law allows us to restrain a patient who poses a threat to himself or to staff, and our MD, a particularly excellent one, wasted no time in decreeing that it be made so. Security is always down there, so we summoned them to help us put the leathers and a spit sock on the young lady. We then shifted her...

WAUKEGAN, Illinois (AP) -- A coroner's jury has declared the death of a heart attack victim who spent almost two hours in a hospital waiting room to be a homicide. Beatrice Vance, 49, died of a heart attack, but the jury at a coroner's inquest ruled Thursday that her death also was "a result of gross deviations from the standard of care that a reasonable person would have exercised in this situation." A spokeswoman for Vista Medical Center in Waukegan, where Vance died July 29, declined to comment on the ruling. (Jury's findings) Vance had waited almost two hours for...

New fees discourage noncritical patients from using emergency rooms Larnita Booker sat patiently in the waiting room at Ben Taub General Hospital's emergency room Tuesday morning, as she always does when she needs to renew a prescription. But when her name was called, she learned the hospital no longer offers that service for free. She could go to one of a dozen community health clinics suggested by Ben Taub counselors, she was told, or she could pay $80 to be seen by a physician at the hospital. "I'm going to have to go somewhere else because I don't have the...

February 14, 2006 HOLLYWOOD AND ACLU VS. CATHOLICISM One of the stories on tonight’s episode of “Boston Legal” concerns a teenage girl who is raped, becomes pregnant and then wants to sue a Catholic hospital for denying her emergency contraception. Catholic League president Bill Donohue took note of this show today: “If there is one Hollywood producer who has shown himself to be positively obsessed with Catholicism, it is David E. Kelley. His treatment of Catholicism on ‘Ally McBeal,’ ‘Picket Fences,’ ‘Chicago Hope,’ ‘Snoops,’ ‘The Practice’ and ‘Boston Legal’ is so well known that we have a big fat file...

Just saw tonight's episode where you had Dr. Kovac, the Catholic from Serbia who lost his wife and 2 children in the Kosovo war, and his babe, another doctor Abby Lockhart, both have been living together, she became pregnant and he told her that it's her body and that it's up to her as to whether or not to have an abortion.  There goes the Rights of the baby to be born and fathers' rights.    At the end of the show Abby decided to keep the baby, her choice not his.   Then in the ER, a 15-year-old girl came in.  Turns out...

Did anyone catch the "ER" episode tonight? It was a direct affront to pro-lifers and Catholics. Luka pushed the whole "personally opposed" agenda. Parental notification was also attacked as the young, pregnant girl was, with Luka's help, able to lie and circumvent the authority of her parents. NBC will here from this Pro Life Catholic.

ASSOCIATED PRESS ATLANTA -- At this city's main trauma hospital, lines of waiting patients clog the hallways - even on slow days. Doctors say they probably couldn't handle a major plane crash or any other incident with more than 20 or 30 severe injuries. "It's a struggle to meet the nightly demand of 911 calls," said Dr. Arthur Kellermann, an ER physician at the hospital, Grady Memorial. "But somehow we're supposed to deal with a ... terrorist bombing? Or a new strain of influenza?" Trauma centers and emergency departments similarly are strained in many U.S. cities, experts say. "Trauma systems...

You'd never know this by reading the news, but yesterday 3,500 emergency physicians showed up on the steps of the U.S. Capitol in white lab coats to petition the Congress for some relief from what ails them. They have some serious concerns, some of which impact all of us in various ways. While hospitals are required by law to provide emergency care to anyone regardless of ability to pay, hospitals do not receive reimbursement from the government for those who cannot pay. It might surprise you to learn that in many cases, neither do the doctors. Many emergency room physicians...

In the fight against terrorism, few stones are left unturned. Every day, patient data from a handful of emergency rooms is sent to the Indiana State Department of Health to be crunched and analyzed. An epidemiologist watches intently for upward trends in rashes, fevers and unexplained deaths. Or a sudden surge in over-the-counter drug sales. The practice -- called syndromic surveillance -- broke onto the public health scene immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and later anthrax deaths. The surveillance method is widely viewed as a tool to detect a possible bioterrorism attack. Computers allow the instant sharing...

Running out of places to care for patients, London's busiest hospital emergency room shut its doors to all but the most severe injuries from outside the city for the first time in its history last week. Two trauma patients had to be diverted during the shutdown, with one patient sent to a hospital in Toronto and the other to Hamilton. The situation hit amid recent reports some London patients have had to wait as long as three days for a hospital bed to become available. "We were in a crisis situation," said Dr. Gary Joubert, chief of emergency medicine for...

"They were there waiting for me when I came back this morning: the sick, the hurt, the scared, the unwise..." "... waiting all night -- for health care..." "...I am the director of the "Fast Track" area of Johns Hopkins Bayview's Emergency Department in Baltimore..." "...Now, like many such facilities across the country, we're often overstuffed with people who simply cannot get care elsewhere..." "...We don't have anyone to whom we can spread the costs of staying open, and we can't afford to expand facilities or personnel..." "...In too many hospitals, people who need inpatient care spend their whole stay...

When thieves stole a steel watch and two bottles of perfume from Niger's embassy on Via Antonio Baiamonti in Rome at the end of December 2000, they left behind many questions about their intentions. The identity of the thieves has not been established. But one theory is that they planned to steal headed notepaper and official stamps that would allow the forging of documents for the illicit sale of uranium from Niger's vast mines. The break-in is one of the murkier elements surrounding the claim - made by the US and UK governments in the lead-up to the Iraq war...

Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2004 Post-Super Bowl, Bare Breasts on 'ER' Raise AlarmOnly days after the firestorm created when Janet Jackson exposed her breast during the Super Bowl, plans to air an episode of "ER" on NBC Thursday evening that includes a view of an elderly female patient's bare breast are raising serious concerns among the network's affiliates. Some NBC affiliates are so uneasy about the scene planned for the first night of sweeps that at least one station group executive described himself Tuesday as "considering what my options are" should NBC decide to air the hour with the exposed breast....

I just sat down at my computer and was shocked to read this freepmail. Hey, this is Annette. Charlie is in the hospital, he went to ER at 2:00 am with pains in his arm. After lots of test we know this: his main artery is completely blocked, they are doing a bypass in the morning. He has been in alot of pain all day and loads of tests. Please pray for him. You can share this with those you think appropriate. I am not really with it right now. I wanted to let you know, he speaks very fondly...

Last fall, I told you about how the television show ER took advantage of a guest appearance by film actor Don Cheadle to propagandize in favor of embryonic stem cell research. That wasn’t the only time that ER viewers have been treated to a liberal sermon on controversial social issues. Both abortion and gay rights have received similar attention. Pointing this out often brings denials that any such sermonizing is taking place and accusations that cultural conservatives are inferring a worldview that isn’t there. Well, a recent story about how ER handled the most important religious question of all makes...

BERLIN (Reuters) - George Clooney (news) reacted with a stream of invective when a journalist called the American actor's latest film -- the box office flop "Solaris" -- "boring" after it was screened at the Berlin Film Festival.

<p>I am number 69 in the queue at the post office. The indicator on the wall shows that number 66 is being served. Number 66 is getting an earful from the postal clerk.</p> <p>"I was at the [local hospital of great reputation and prestige] emergency room last night, and they kept me waiting for five hours. I mean, what kind of service is that? I could have died! Why don't they hire more staff? What do I have insurance for, anyhow?"</p>

Just a month ago, Aaron Sorkin, the man responsible for creating and writing the hit NBC series "The West Wing," walked out of a theater in Los Angeles gripping his third consecutive Emmy award for best drama. He had every reason to believe he could head right over to NBC, brandish the latest award and, using the leverage that every producer of a hit show up for renegotiation has, tell the network to pay up. But in one of the more intriguing subplots of the television season, circumstances have changed suddenly and unexpectedly for "The West Wing" and Mr. Sorkin....

I have been a fathful watcher of ER for many years. Over tha past couple of years, I have been disappointed in the plot twists that have taken place. When the character of Carrie Weaver, as played by Laura Innes, was "outed" last year, I was rather relieved in that I thought that storyline was then a dead issue. Other than another girlfriend, what else could they do with it? ER is suffering from repetativeness. How many GSW's can you treat? In an effort to stay fresh, ER is now getting somewhat bizzare. Last nights episode featured a doctor having...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The Budd Co., one of Philadelphia's major employers for much of the 20th century, announced Friday that it is closing its last auto-parts plant in the city. About 600 people work at the plant in Philadelphia's Hunting Park neighborhood that makes metal stampings and assemblies such as roofs, doors, fenders, tailgates, lift gates and body side panels. Many of the workers are longtime employees who are eligible for retirement, the company said. The company said it has excess manufacturing capacity at its Detroit and Philadelphia plants and plans...

Although dramatically brilliant, the May 9 episode of TV's ER, in which star Anthony Edwards bade farewell to the series he had anchored for eight years, had Edwards utter a four-letter word, the use of which was yet another blow to civilized standards in broadcasting.