Remote medical emergencies

L

lonelynorthwind

New Member
Location
Alaska
[FONT=Georgia, Times New Roman]Below is a good example of what often happens here. The part that frustrates me is that this young mom took her baby to the "hospital" i.e. clinic three times before anybody took her serious. Then they were going to release him?! But by the grace of God guiding that man to order an xray.....[/FONT]
[FONT=Georgia, Times New Roman]My next thought was, the child was brought in with symptoms of a severe cold. Wouldn't you think a chest xray to check for pneumonia would be the first thing they'd do?
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[FONT=Georgia, Times New Roman]"Liam got sick, with what just seemed like a common cold. Jaci started to worry about him as the cold lasted longer and longer and got worse. She brought him into the hospital in Wrangell, AK 3 times before he was admitted and stayed a few nights. He was about to be released Sunday morning, when the doctor check him one last time and decided to run more tests, an xray revealed that he had an enlarged heart. immediately they proceeded to call Seattle Childrens and get a Medivac, this was around noon, we were informed Medivac wouldn't be there til about 2:15. When the plane finally arrived the medivac nurses came in to check out Liam decided he was severely dehydrated and tried to place an IV. They could not find a vein, by this time Paul was working on finding a way to Seatlle. Then the nurses decided to place an IV into his Bone Marrow. When he finally was able to travel and made it to Childrens Hospital, Liam went into cardiac arrest. He was given CPR and he was put onto an ECMO machine which takes over for his heart and lungs so he doesn't have to do as much work. Giving his heart a chance to recover and heal. The next 2 days Liam had arithmias, but not as many as before ECMO, but 2 days into ECMO he was given a procedure that is desgined to relieve the pressure in his dialated heart, immediately after the procedure there were good signs but not enough to even start thinking about taking him off of ECMO. However, he has had almost NO arithmias which is a very good sign. We were told that most of his major Organs are showing signs of recovery and no lasting damage from the arrest that he experienced."[/FONT]
 

I just looked Wrangell Island up on a map and I see that it is close to British Columbia. Seattle seems a long way for a medivac plane to come from. Is there a nearer base where planes are based? What happens in areas further north in Alaska? Where is the largest hospital for most patients to go to? Surely they don't all have to be evacuated to Seattle, or is that just the sickest children?

Do tell us more about your situation vis a vis medical treatments.
 
Yes, we're only about 30 miles from the Canadian border....but...you can't get there from here. We're on an island 15 miles from the mouth of the Stikine river which flows some 200 miles through Canada but the nearest road is 180 miles upriver in Telegraph Creek, Canada. That used to be a favorite summer-time trip before 9-11 ended all the fun. We used to have many Canadian fisherman friends spend time in Wrangell but no more, I miss them.

Seattle is the nearest city to deal with critical situations, the medi-vac jets are located there too. If the weather is so bad a jet can't land here the coast guard will send a helecopter.
We do have one general practitioner who lives here but for anything other than routine colds & flu it means a trip out of town. The hospital in Ketchikan is the nearest for broken bones, delivering babies, minor surgery or to stabilize life-threatening emergencies.

The biggest problem we have here is getting the staff here to recognize a critical situation when it slaps them in the face. A couple years ago my friend's husband was extremely ill. She took him to the hosp., they literally told her to take him home & give him 2 aspirin. The Alaska airlines jet was due in about an hour so she took him to the airport instead. By the time the jet landed in Ketchikan he was unconscious with a burst appendix. Would have died if she'd taken him home.
 

This is just some of the reasons that I do my own medical check ups and learn what I need to know to save myself. Don't relay on the doctors the number one cause of death in the U.S. is the medical system.
They have their place in an emergency if you can get one.
 
On the other hand you often read about the opposite problem. People seek medical care for what seems like an obvious problem when the doctor orders a bunch of tests... various lab work, xrays, scans, biopsy, referrals to specialists, etc. Sometimes we view these extra measures taken by doctors as an important factor behind spiraling health care costs. Sometimes we think the doctor's motives for requiring tests are to protect themselves against lawsuits. Other times we believe the doctor is gaining financially through kickbacks. It's so difficult to determine what is needed and what is needless where medical tests are concerned. A child has symptoms of a cold that is getting worse. Should the doctors have tested for every possible condition that could produce such symptoms? Encephalitis? Allergies? Flu? A chronic lung disease? GERD? Asthma? Bronchitis? Tuberculosis? Sinusitis? Common cold? COPD? Side effect from a medication? Exposure to dust, fumes, chemicals? A partial blockage in the airway? And at what point would the doctor suspect an enlarged heart and run tests for that? In the story everything worked out in favor of this young boy's life. The doctors discovered what was wrong. The boy was successfully treated. What is the problem with that?
 
Same here Doug. I never go out in winter without icewalkers on my shoes, a broken bone would not only bankrupt me but I'd be helpless. I don't flit through the woods like I used to, it becomes more and more important to watch every step the older I get. There are medicines growing in these woods that beat anything a doctor could prescribe, including antibiotics that actually work - without the side effects that might just kill you. I'd much rather depend on me than the U.S. medical system, especially the excuse of a medical system here.

We used to have an old Marine surgeon that took care of the whole town from delivering babies to most any surgeries. If you didn't have money, a casserole, batch of cookies or just a hug was enough payment. He'd even x-ray and operate on your dog if need be. He was also a raging alcoholic but we all knew at his worst he was the best and dearly loved us all. About 15 years ago the city hired a new hospital administrator who immediately brought in a new fancydancy downsouth doctor and discontinued "Doc's" hospital priviledges then took steps to have his license revoked. which left us without a surgeon. Or anybody that gave a damn, yeah, Doc was often buzzed but I don't recall him EVER making a mistake and if you needed help in the middle of the night, he'd be right there.
The fancydancy doctor lasted less than a year but Doc is still gone and his big heart is still broken.
Doc delivered nearly everyone living here older than 15, including 1 of my kids and 6 of my grandkids. When my daughter's last child was born I helped Doc deliver him on the sofa at his house. He had delivered all the others, my daughter refused to let that newfangeled idiot touch her and the hospital refused to let Doc in the delivery room. That was the most amazing experience and the last baby born in Wrangell.
 
Australia has a lot of isolated regions because most of our population hugs the coast and early last century a scheme was set up to service the needs of what we call the Outback. The service, now called the Flying Doctor Service, still operates with based located in different places to ensure that a plane can come quite quickly when needed.

Anyone interested can find out about it here

http://www.flyingdoctor.org.au/About-Us/Our-History/

[h=2]What services do the Flying Doctors provide?[/h]The RFDS provides 24-hour emergency assistance to accident victims and patients with life-threatening illnesses in remote areas.

The 2005 RFDS annual report states that in 2005 the organisation treated 234,783 patients. That's an average of 643 patients per day. In that year there were, on average, 91 aerial evacuations per day - a total of 33,339 for the year.

But the RFDS also has a much wider role to play in the outback community. Some of the other RFDS services include:

  • Advice from nurses and doctors over the radio or telephone. This is often done using a standard range of medicines and first aid equipment available in 3,500 medical chests stationed in isolated locations throughout Australia.
  • Transfer of patients from small rural hospitals to larger city facilities.
  • Conducting health clinics in remote areas and communities and providing access to various health professionals including dentists, mental health workers, community health nurses and other specialists.
  • Providing medical assistance to outback travellers. Due to poor mobile phone coverage in the outback the RFDS recommends people carry satellite phones or two-way radios tuned into the RFDS frequency.

Funding for the RFDS comes from Commonwealth, State and Territory governments. But the organisation also relies heavily on donations[SUP]9[/SUP] from small businesses, the corporate sector and the general public to purchase medical equipment and aircraft.
Click to expand...
 

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