<p>@teriwtt That is completely unrelated to my point. But, I’m glad to hear you’re feeling better.</p>
<p>You had an obvious condition, though, not vague flu-like symptoms.</p>
<p>How is it not related this comment?</p>
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<p>By writing this, you’re suggesting the only people who go to an ER (much less, with a fever) are people with no insurance and no way to pay. If you meant something else, then please clarify. </p>
<p>Well, you have wonderful insurance. The decision to go to the ER has been a big one for my family because we don’t have wonderful insurance and it’s expensive. The number of fevers, cuts, burns episodes of vomiting, and so forth that have gone untreated are countless. Broken bones do get the ER around here though. But, that and one near death episode is about it. It’s a financial decision when finances are involved. That’s what I meant. And, the fact that when they don’t really know what to do they give you antibiotics. That’s another problem, though.</p>
<p>Also, this is not a complaint. I don’t mind not running to the ER with this stuff at all since it is not at all necessary. He reportedly had a very mild fever and a stomach ache. No, we don’t get medical care for that under any circumstances. Well, unless we suspect a deadly disease is coming on, I guess. As for the ebola guy. I think it’s pretty clear by now that he knew he probably had ebola all along.</p>
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<p>He came to the US because this is where most of his family lives. According to some reports, he was intending to marry his GF, whose adult daughter calls him her “step-daddy.” (This is the D who called the ambulance on Sunday. She had taken over from her mother, who had to go to work.) His plans to come here seem to have been in the works for a while.</p>
<p>Josephus Weeks–who lives in NC with the patient’s mother, and is the one who called the hospital, got nowhere, then called the CDC, who told him to call the Texas health authorities–says that the patient TOLD HIM on the phone that he had been out of the Ebola zone for a long time. If anything, the patient lied TO him, or genuinely believed it. I think that he had managed to convince himself that he had not, practically on the eve of his move to the US, been exposed to Ebola, or if he was exposed that he would not be one of the unlucky ones who came down with it. I would be that he just wanted to get out of that mess, and be with his GF. Denial is a powerful thing. I also think that there is a lot of cultural stuff going on here around communication that some of us do not understand. Weeks is not a Liberian, in the way that the patient’s brother Mr. Smallwood is. Weeks is much more direct in his communication.</p>
<p>I have great insurance and my extended family does as well, The only time that any of us have been to the ER in all the decades we have had great insurance is once when my dad who is over 80 had chest pains and once when my mom who was over 80 was in an auto accident and had her sternum fractured due to the airbag deploying. </p>
<p>None of us ever went to the ER due to flu-like symptoms or even due to fever, chills, or breathing issues, even tho we have asthma and worse. Going to the ER for flu-like symptoms is NOT a typical response unless you believe it is something more serious and/or have no one to care for you and/or no insurance/resources, I believe.</p>
<p>I find it disturbing that the nursing triage chart notes were available to ER docs but not accessed or acted upon. Because I just read the new Vanity Fair on my last flight the parallel comes instantly to mind. We may have the most technologically advanced and highly resourced medical facilities around but if the internal hierarchy and culture is more Asiana and Air France than Southwest we’re going down. Now if I could only find a way to work Robert Downey Jr. into that I would have the perfect trifecta!</p>
<p>So, I read that step daddy story and remain unconvinced. I think they’re over-playing the cultural stuff and intentionally not answering direct questions and launching into sob stories that don’t hold up to a teeny-tiny amount of scrutiny. But, that’s just my opinion right now. I suppose it could change. I doubt it, though.</p>
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<p>You know, if you can’t get any of this straight after being directed to sources repeatedly, maybe you could at least just stop spreading misinformation.</p>
<p>Have you read the NYT article linked here that interviews the family of the pregnant woman at length? Have you seen the photo of their dead son, who was also involved in the ride to the hospital? Are you seriously saying that they cooked up this story?</p>
<p>@consolation. There are also people speaking for him who said he was nowhere near there. I believe one of these people said she was his mom. Yes, there is definitely misinformation floating around. See Post #424.</p>
<p>“None of us ever went to the ER due to flu-like symptoms or even due to fever, chills, or breathing issues, even tho we have asthma and worse. Going to the ER for flu-like symptoms is NOT a typical response unless you believe it is something more serious and/or have no one to care for you and/or no insurance/resources, I believe.”</p>
<p>But we know that the uninsured use the ER much more frequently for symptoms such as those than do people who have insurance and a PCP. </p>
<p>Although I have excellent insurance I have used the ER on occasion and not for broken bones. I had a terrible headache once (it was evening and I had tried all day to get it to go away) and went to the ER. I was shocked at how quickly I was seen. Almost immediately I was taken to a room and a doctor showed up. They sent me immediately for a CT scan and when that showed no brain tumor, I had a spinal. Turns out I had meningitis, but fortunately viral. They didn’t know that part immediately, so I did have to be in isolation for a few days until they determined that. </p>
<p>His 87-yr old mother apparently lives with her daughter and grandson (Weeks). Naturally she would repeat what Duncan told Weeks.</p>
<p>The major thing the mother said was that she loved her son, and she repeatedly thanked all of the medical personel who were caring for him. I would think you would like that. I certainly did. </p>
<p>I just think we don’t have his whole story. I do agree they should be thanking the US medical community that they put at risk though. That poor nurse and the EMT’s especially. And, the mayor who found them a house, too. Since Liberia and Texas are both threatening to prosecute him I do think there may be facts emerging at some point. Right now, his side of this is just a big rumor mill of conflicting information that doesn’t add up.</p>
<p>“I’m not sure whether to be offended here or not. I do think you are skating on very thin ice here.”</p>
<p>For the life of me, @sylvan8798, I had no idea of why you could possibly be offended. That brings back fond memories of my Mom saying, “You’re skating on very thin ice here, missy!” Then I knew I could be in big, big trouble.</p>
<p>I reread what I wrote, and instead of saying I wondered if he contracted it from seminal fluid, I should have written “sexual contact”. I can see how those two words can swing what I meant to say into appearing as a gay insult, and of course, that’s not what I meant. But I consider that someone who would have lied and exposed his fiancé to a deadly disease could easily have cheated on her, which I consider a moral failing. I suspect the public may never know how he contracted it.</p>
<p>I do think that whether this guy is a moral man is completely relevant to this situation. If he can’t be trusted to tell the truth on some of the basics, how do you trust anything he says? And it matters, to figure out who has been exposed, to limit their risk and the spread of the disease.</p>
<p>Nobody goes to the emergency room with mild flu symptoms, insured or not insured, do they? Most of us suffer it out until the temperature and symptoms get higher. And then, wouldn’t you go to a minor medical clinic and pay a much smaller fee? Why would you go to the emergency room? Unless you knew you could potentially have something very serious.</p>
<p>The fee part only matters if you are going to pay a fee. So yes, there are ER’s full of people with minor issues. In his case, I think they knew. Otherwise there would not have been a follow-up call to the CDC. That’s where things go off the rails, imho.</p>
<p>People who never had to pay medical bills, like those on MedicAID also sometimes have a preference for the ER. They can get their free Rx and “get a rest.” Have heard it from healthcare workers who care for folks at community health centers who are frustrated that the folks prefer ERs than coming to their maintenance check ups. Drives up medical costs terribly!</p>
<p>I’ve had as-good-as no insurance (a $15K per person deductible) or no insurance for most of the last 15 years. (I now have real insurance, albeit with a $5K pp deductible and an HSA.) When one does not have functional insurance, and has a very low income–which usually go hand in hand–one does not see doctors unless it is an emergency. Doctors demand insurance info up front. They need to be paid. I had various medical problems over that period of time that simply went untreated. Wait until it goes away was the order of the day. I actually consulted “my” doctor’s medical practice on two occasions and was sent to the ER or urgent care: once when I had such bad bronchitis that I was coughing up blood, and the second time when I had become very anemic (hematocrit 24) due to heavy bleeding that went on for 6 weeks.</p>
<p>People go to the ER because hospitals are required to treat people, and they have no relationship with a doctor. It seems pretty obvious why they would have taken him to the ER with a fever and abdominal pain: they are Liberian. They know what has been going on there. Of course they thought he might have Ebola when he started having symptoms. They, and he, might well have been relieved when he was given a prescription and some Excedrin and told to go home. After all, they told the medical people he was from Liberia several times, and they were supposed to know what the were doing. He didn’t start having diarrhea until after he took the antibiotics at home. That is a possible side effect of antibiotics. It probably says so on the package insert. Maybe they hoped that was what was going on. Then he got really sick, started vomiting, and they knew it was not minor.</p>
<p>I can’t imagine going to an ER first, for minor symptoms, possibly waiting for hours and having to deal with them coming after you for the cost of it. I don’t think they just say, “No insurance? In that case, it’s free.” You would still get the bill. If he can afford a ticket from Liberia to the US, he can afford $100-$200 for a minor medical clinic. And I wouldn’t go to either, even with full insurance, for something they probably can’t help me with.</p>
<p>Do you think he’ll be billed for this medical care? It’s going to be a whopper. Of course, that’s assuming he doesn’t land in jail somewhere. His ambulance ride was probably billed at 1K alone. We would drive. And, “In that case it’s free,” is pretty close to the day-to-day reality. Hard to believe, I know.</p>