The Bull Run Observer that a new Emergency Room is scheduled to open July 1st in Haymarket. It started me thinking about all the development over the past decade, could there conceivably just be overcrowding at Prince William Hospital due to an increase in residential units? In the past 10 years, the Haymarket area has seen atleast 10,000 new homes added. Then if we look westward to areas like Fauquier, the growth has been even more dramatic. Could the overcrowding at PWC Hospital just be another instance where the underlying infrastructure has not developed at the same rate as the home construction?
Take for example, Route 29 through Gainesville, this stretch of road has been 4 lanes(2 in each direction) for probably close to 30 years. Now, new commercial development has been approved and built on either side of 29 that would make it impossible to widen. Isn’t this just a result of poor planning? My point being, the overcrowding at Prince William Hospital could be mainly attributable to our area’s rapid growth and poor planning?
Actually, that is a good question! I have to admit, I didn’t look at it that way.
On my ER visit on Mother’s day, we ended up in the ER in Woodstock and I was delighted in the fact I was in and out in less than an hour.
Come to think of it, the timing was right and I ended up at the DMV there too with the same experience.( any other time, I drove to Warrenton to that DMV, it was WORTH the drive)
I will STILL stand FIRM that people use the ER because they have no insurance and something needs to be done. I am just unsure of a socialized plan.
Good point Alanna and sure, I suppose you could say that population growth in general would increase emergency room activity and I’m sure it did, to a point. However, I do feel that a majority of the problem is due to illegal (and maybe even some legal) immigrants that do not have insurance. But good point because like Red Dawn I have never really thought about it like that.
Alanna,
You might be able to take this one step further, maybe our schools are also over crowded because of all the new families that live in all these new homes.
Hello, having two small children, I have visited the emergency room a few times in the last several years! I cannot determine who is there in need of a “real” emergency, and who is there for regular care. There is a health care crisis in this country that has nothing to do with immigration, legal or otherwise. The longest I ever waited in an emergency room was Faquier Hospital, and the waiting room was practically empty! However, there was an emergency happing in the back that no one could see which was causing the delay.
hello said:
hello, think about it like this:
Who can vote? You.
Who cannot vote? Illegals.
Who has all the power to control social services? Those who vote.
Who has absolutely no power to control social services? Those who can’t vote.
Who are the empowered voters blaming for the deficiencies of social services? The disempowered non-voters who scatter in fear at the drop of a hat. Am I missing something here???????
I have lived here for many years. I have had to use the ER for various reasons with my children when they were young and for minor accidents. I have always had to wait sometimes for several hours. I don’t think the wait at the ER is necessarily due to the illegal population. I know that at times the ER is understaffed. When people with serious injuries or life threatening issues arrive they are taken and attended to first. The staff triages and cases are taken based on need not necessarily on first come first served. If a patient is in crisis it may take most everyone on staff to attend to that person, thus others have to wait.
I also think Alanna and Elena have good points. Look at the number of homes that have been built over the past 10 years. Look at the Vint Hill and Linton Hall corridors. Camp Glenkirk was sold and developments went in there. The huge horse farm out on 28 was developed and there are houses upon houses.
The BOCS did nothing to control the growth. They continued to allow developers to build on any square inch they could find. I am still amazed at the building that is going on now. In the City of Manassas Hastings Market Place is now under construction-shopping center, town houses, single family and condos. Who will move in there?? Lee Commons is another place with several hundred condos. They wonder why the ER is crowded, the jail is crowded and the schools are crowded. Just look at all the houses. I guess they believe if you build they will come but are unprepared for the population boom.
What about the ROADS? 😉
touché Elena, you do have a point, there is no way of telling who is having a “real” emergency. Unfortunately I’ve had my fair share of emergency room visist (Prince William Hospital – which by the way, if you can make it to any other hospital do it) as well the past few years and that’s my perception. Once I went in with a gall bladder attack (honestly felt like I was dying) and the whole room was full. I was doubled over in a ball and had to be taken back after sitting there balled up for about two hours. I was there for a total of almost 10 hours. Many of the people there were well enough to walk around, talk to eachother and walk up to the counter in what I perceived to be non-emergency issues. Just my perception… yours may have been different.
hello,
Well, I do have to add that PW Hospital had a reputation of ” Don’t go there if…”
Well BEFORE the illegals were even thought of.
ONE example, ( there are MANY) was when my husband was a teen he cut himself with a box cutter while working at Hechingers ( anyone remember that store? LOL) His mom was with him and he had his hand wrapped up the best they could and they came out to him and asked if ” he could quit bleeding on the floor?” That is when his mom took him to Fairfax ( after running into the bathroom while at PW for napkins, etc., to try and STOP the bleeding-before they came out and asked)
Hello,
that was so cool, how did you get the whatever that thing is called, over the e in touche?!
I would add, you may be experiencing a PW Hospital issue and not an immigration issue. Having had two emergencies, both of which I went to Fair Oaks hospital, I was taken to the back almost immediately. One was a kidney stone, and the other was a possible case of meningitis(turned out to be a double dose of tick diseases,lyme with some erlicheosis as the “icing on the cake” to really make me horribly ill).
Red Dawn,
Yes, what about the roads! Us smart growth activists were villified for being “anti-growth”, which was never the case, we were just for smart planned growth with the infrastructure in place to support our community!
Elena,
Can you say Disney Disaster? What did we get in replacement? 🙂
Over the past 2 and a half years I have had many opportunities to have to go to Prince William Hospital with various family members. I have literally spent hours there. I found most of the time that the medical staff was courteous and professional.
I never found the emergency room to be packed with ‘illegals.’ I am beginning to think that people read something about this and it took on a life of its own. As much time as I had to spend up there in spring 2006, I am sure I would have seen the gathering of masses of people if it existed. Basically, I think it is all BS.
Moon-howler,
That I would agree with as no matter when and what year, a decade or 2, you always had to WAIT)
Also, I would say that BIGGER is NOT better 🙂 the service leaves ROOM for argument, I guess it just depends on what pain level you are on and who is on duty 🙂
Well, at least we have the Rural Crescent, not sure how long it will last, but I am fighting to protect it. Having the Rural Crescent was the saving grace for this county.
Imagine how much WORSE the over development would have been had we not had half the county “protected” from high density housing.
I think you are correct Moon-howler.
I worked at Prince William Hospital for 15 years of my career and still have many friends there. I can tell you that over the last several years that I worked there, there was a vast increase in the number of people who showed up in the ER or other facilities with absolutely NO identification, no insurance and unable to speak a word of English. The already-stretched nursing and admin staff there had their hands full trying to deal with all of that and to try to provide EVERYONE with the best care possible. And many of these folks were not in the throes of an emergency,but simply taking advantage of “free” healthcare for their sore throats and earaches and other minor issues.
No, the average person in the waiting area cannot tell if the other patients there are “illegal” or not. But just try to get SOME form of identification from them, and many will haplessly pull out an empty wallet to prove to you that they have none. But they sure know enough that the hospital cannot turn them away when they show up in the ER. Glad so many of you are willing to put up with the added costs and increased waiting times that result.
Red Dawn, I’m sorry that your husband had such a terrible experience there when he was a child, but I think that PWH has one of the finest staffs around–very caring people who go out of their way to help everyone. It is a wonderful place which has gotten bigger and better over the last few years.
Emma.
God bless you for being in the field of medicine. It takes a special person to be able to stomach and put up with the difference between the ouch and SCREAM. It just depend on tolerance (some are whiny or silent). I would add to my statement of:
“Also, I would say that BIGGER is NOT better 🙂 the service leaves ROOM for argument, I guess it just depends on what pain level you are on and who is on duty :)”
the point I was really making, it comes down to ” red tape” PROTOCOL and I am sure the staff is frustrated. I have seen it with a doctors office, let me check if your insurance co. to see if they can APPROVE this/that…it has become DICTATED by Pharmaceuticals and not the love and care of people with medicine they KNOW they can prescribe and that would be the fix. The doctors/staff have to do allot of paper work and research on what they can and cannot do, NOT because of the medicine, just what the insurance co. will allow AND deal with the whiny/screaming patient…. Who is in control? I know I couldn’t so it. ( maybe the reason for a high turn over and demand in the field)
I still have to admit that I know of more horror stories about PWH… BUT I will say, MAYBE because that is all I knew 🙂
I must add that having been a patient in PW Hospital and having had surgery there, I found the hospital staff to be great. My husband has had several surgeries and again the staff was great. I really hate to see the hospital bashed because it does provide good hospital care to the patients. Is it perfect? No. My father was in FFX Hospital many times and I was not impressed on many occasions.
The ER is fine as well but people tend to get upset when they have to wait. I have always found the staff helpful and courteous. Someone correct me if I am wrong. Isn’t the ER privately owned? I know years ago it was. Is that still the case?
As for the numbers of people who use the ER to see a doctor that just makes the case for the lack of affordable health care. It is a travesty that the most wealthy country in the world can not provide health care to everyone. Do you know what happens to poor people? They die because they can’t get nor can they afford treatment. Having worked in the public sector for many years, I have seen this over and over. MCV and UVA can only take so many poor patients.
I’ve been to the ER at Reston only a few times in my life, most recently last month, but I can never recall ever having to wait more than an hour to get in, nor can I recall the waiting room being full, but this may not count because I believe Reston Hospital may be a private establishment and I’ve been fortunate enough to never have been uninsured (during the times I did get sick).
In Herndon we have a free clinic that has been set up to treat the uninsured for minor problems. The clinic has been a very smart move because it has been able to keep track of illness within the lower income community, it has been able to give classes and material in higene and preventitave measures. Local Doctors and Nurses vouleenteer at the clinic and some local practitioners have a certian amount of free appointments reserved for the patients who are classified as in need of special care. There is really no way to tell if the clinic has had any impact on the fullness of the emergency rooms because there are just not enough local free clinics in Fairfax to handle all the uninsured, but I can safely say that one person being treated for a minor issue in a free clinic. is one less person filling up the ER at the county hospitals.
…and yet we still get an occasional letter in the paper calling for the closing of the free clinic. There is a small minority in Herndon who still think the best policy to get rid of Illegal aliens is to deny them everything, even if it’s free, privately funded or also serves Legal Residents as well. Otherwise our mayor and council either back or have no opinion of the Free Clinic and Privately funded day labor sites.
You might be able to take this one step further, maybe our schools are also over crowded because of all the new families that live in all these new homes.” Wally Covington said something similar when he reported that people here (especially in our area) are having bigger families.
Bigger families require more medical care. PWC Hospital has greatly expanded over the past couple of years and continues to do so. It’s a community need, not some “illegal immigrant takover” of the medical system.
Mackie, those who cannot vote should not have any control over Social Services.
Perhaps those “empowered voters” (your terminology) are blaming the deficiencies of the Social Services (I would put local health care and to a degree, our schools) on the strains from those non-citizens who have no health insurance and have to use the ER as primary care or those costs associated with additional expenses for education (ESOL teachers perhaps or trailers because of the presence of illegal alien’s children overcrowd the classrooms) and knowing those expenses may not be there if our borders were secure.
that’s so awesome! now the illegals can fill that one too!