Hippocratic Oath - " Do No Harm" - Or so they say, Yuma Arizona's Version
October of 2008, I took my wife Sandi to Yuma's only hospital just blocks from where we lived. Suffering from nervous exhaustion, she was on the verge of a nervous collapse.
I should have known better. This one and a half horse town's only medical facility, as rumor would have it was not Board-certified, the entire hospital mind you, and when in the middle of the night, I brought her to the check in, we were warmly welcomed by the nursing staff.
" come in, " they said, " we'll have a psychologist treat her here." I felt a warm sense of relief wash down deep inside of me. Three hours and several tap dances later, No white coats were to be seen. One burly male nurse who looked similar to the guy on ER approached us wanting to do a work-up for a vehicle accident victim and we said NO.
Patiently, we explained. He wandered off. Other female nurses looked at us as if we dropped in from Mars. Longer waits, no white coats.
Finally, an Hispanic male, a "physician's assistant" shows, and greets us with an exhausted " Hi, what do we have here?"
I explain. Psychiatric work up, wife on the edge, fragile, etc.
" jeez, I'm sorry - we don't do that here."
I grab Sandi and head for the door. NO ONE touched her while there, except me. A frantic nurse followed us to the door, hollering I had to sign something. Afraid she might follow me to the car, I signed and we fled. The "horse-pital" had NO psychiatric staff at all, I later found.
In fact, a check of the Yuma phone book has only ONE registered Psychiatrist in residence who is in her 80's and graduated from a university in India half her life ago. One psychologist travels from California for just a few days a week, and typical of the Yuma Healthcare industry, charges over a $100 an hour, far in excess of the average wage earned in town.
A former mayor that I know and others whom I met while living there, often seek medical help in either Phoenix or San Diego, never relying on the docs in Yuma. It takes a while to get the lay-of-the-land in that town to fully understand why.
I did NOT pay that hospital bill over two years ago. I still get collection agents calling me hoping I will pay the $300 the hospital says I owe for that visit. The hospital has unleashed bill collectors in three states over a paltry $300 they alledge I owe them. Two years and they phone keeps ringing, and I live off just a social security check.
They will roast in hell before I pay them. They will have better luck collecting on the ob/gyn bills owed them from the illegal alien boarder crossers who birth their anchor babies at that hospital who skip on the bills and jump back across safety down south.
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I should have known better. This one and a half horse town's only medical facility, as rumor would have it was not Board-certified, the entire hospital mind you, and when in the middle of the night, I brought her to the check in, we were warmly welcomed by the nursing staff.
" come in, " they said, " we'll have a psychologist treat her here." I felt a warm sense of relief wash down deep inside of me. Three hours and several tap dances later, No white coats were to be seen. One burly male nurse who looked similar to the guy on ER approached us wanting to do a work-up for a vehicle accident victim and we said NO.
Patiently, we explained. He wandered off. Other female nurses looked at us as if we dropped in from Mars. Longer waits, no white coats.
Finally, an Hispanic male, a "physician's assistant" shows, and greets us with an exhausted " Hi, what do we have here?"
I explain. Psychiatric work up, wife on the edge, fragile, etc.
" jeez, I'm sorry - we don't do that here."
I grab Sandi and head for the door. NO ONE touched her while there, except me. A frantic nurse followed us to the door, hollering I had to sign something. Afraid she might follow me to the car, I signed and we fled. The "horse-pital" had NO psychiatric staff at all, I later found.
In fact, a check of the Yuma phone book has only ONE registered Psychiatrist in residence who is in her 80's and graduated from a university in India half her life ago. One psychologist travels from California for just a few days a week, and typical of the Yuma Healthcare industry, charges over a $100 an hour, far in excess of the average wage earned in town.
A former mayor that I know and others whom I met while living there, often seek medical help in either Phoenix or San Diego, never relying on the docs in Yuma. It takes a while to get the lay-of-the-land in that town to fully understand why.
I did NOT pay that hospital bill over two years ago. I still get collection agents calling me hoping I will pay the $300 the hospital says I owe for that visit. The hospital has unleashed bill collectors in three states over a paltry $300 they alledge I owe them. Two years and they phone keeps ringing, and I live off just a social security check.
They will roast in hell before I pay them. They will have better luck collecting on the ob/gyn bills owed them from the illegal alien boarder crossers who birth their anchor babies at that hospital who skip on the bills and jump back across safety down south.
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