Why YSK: If you’re injured or ill but it’s not life or limb threatening and you decide to call an ambulance thinking it’ll be faster and you’ll be seen first… WRONG. Ambulance crews very frequently will advise the hospital staff that you “can wait”. Then we’ll plop you into a wheel chair and push you into the waiting room with everyone else.
My experience dealing with healthcare, ambulances and hospitals in Canada.
No matter how you get to the hospital, ambulance, driving yourself, taking a cab, etc. When you get there, a triage attendant will check your condition for severity. If you have something that can kill you quickly (abnormal heart rate, extreme high or low blood pressure, signs of a stroke, difficulty breathing), uncontrollable bleeding, some sort of penetrating injury (shot, stabbed, impaled, etc) they’ll bring you in immediately.
If it’s something not as critical (broken appendage, bleeding which can be controlled by pressure, etc., unspecified pain), you’re going to wait until anyone in the first category has been taken care of first.
Count your blessings if you have to wait, it means whatever you have is not that bad. May be in a lot of pain and otherwise suck, but it’s probably not life threatening.
When I went to a hospital with a heart arrhythmia, they didn’t break stride as they brought me in and hooked me up to many machines to monitor everything. That’s an “oh, crap!” moment. I’d much rather be told I had to wait for a bit, means it’s not too bad, and I can keep occupied as long as my phone battery holds-out.
At least in Canada, it will be cheap, if not totally free. Had heart surgery that would’ve cost $80,000k in the US. In Canada? I complained about paying for parking for the day.