Emergency Room

On Thursday, the day the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare, a 47-year-old Baltimore woman went to the drugstore, and pulled out her debit card to pay for a prescription refill. But she didn't have enough money in the account to cover the $425 charge. So she asked the pharmacist and staff for a favor. "I asked them to break up the prescription to give me one-third," says the woman, who would not allow her name to be published because she didn't want to disclose her medical conditions.

An adult male suffering multiple gunshot wounds walked into the emergency room of University of Maryland Medical Center on Monday afternoon and told police that he was shot at a nearby cookout by an unknown man who opened fire. The man, whose identity was not disclosed, entered the emergency room at 12:44 p.m. and told police that he was shot multiple times at Fayette and Gilmor streets, Det. Angela Carter-Watson said. The man's injuries are believed to be non life-threatening, she said.

The new John Hopkins Hospital opens this weekend and that means there is a new emergency room for adults and children. Beginning Sunday at 7 a.m., the public, police, ambulance crews and others will need to go to 1800 Orleans Street. The current entrances on East Monument Street will close. The new entrances are next to the front entrance to the new hospital. Patients also are being moved this weekend from the old hospital buildings. A parking garage is directly across the street from the entrance for non-emergency visitors.

Summer is almost here, and with it likely some blistering hot days. A recent study suggests the elderly should beware when the temperature spikes, because they face an increased risk of winding up in the emergency room short of breath on those days. And that's just a taste of what health problems to expect as global climate change cranks the heat up in many places. Researchers for Johns Hopkins, Harvard and Yale universities reviewed a nationwide health database of 12.5 million older Americans on Medicare and found that increases in outdoor temperatures raise the risk for the elderly of being rushed to the hospital with respiratory disorders.

During Anne Arundel Community College's emergency department simulation, nursing professor Kathy Jo Keever played a patient brought to an emergency room after falling from a tree stand while trying to shoot a 14-point buck. After having her belongings - including a crushed beer can and fake pistol - removed, she was wheeled into a chaotic, crowded ER: Every patient bed was taken, some occupied by mannequins with voice commands, while an actress patient pleaded for pain medication.

Crowding appears to be declining at Howard County's only hospital emergency room, and a citizens group is promoting the use of a dozen private urgent-care clinics in the county as a cheaper, more convenient option to help keep that trend going. "Our purpose is to let the people of Howard County know that the providers are here," said Barbara Russell, a Howard County Citizens Association member who serves on the group's three-person committee studying emergency medical care. To that end, the group hosted a meeting Monday night at the Hawthorne Community Center featuring the county's top medical officials.

The emergency room at Carroll County General Hospital was ranked in the top 10 percent of nearly 300 hospitals nationwide for patient satisfaction during this year's first quarter, according to a survey by a Chicago-based consulting firm.The rating was the result of polling of patients and surveys of emergency rooms among 281 participating hospitals in 41 states. The rating is a composite reflecting such categories as nursing and physician care, testing services, medical outcomes and the admissions process.

West County residents will lose their closest emergency room if Kimbrough Army Community Hospital is downgraded to a clinic, hospital officials told residents yesterday.The Fort Meade hospital, which would be reclassified under a Department of Defense military reduction plan, recorded 22,622 visits to its emergency room last year.Lt. Col. Steven Markelz, the Kimbrough administrator, explained to residents yesterday that national hospital accreditation regulations prohibit an emergency room at a medical facility that does not also provide in-patient care.

Methane gas from a storm drain under Franklin Square Hospital in Rosedale sickened a nurse in the hospital's emergency room last night and forced the evacuation of about 50 patients, visitors and staff members, according to a Baltimore County Fire Department spokesman.The gas entered the hospital building's ventilation system and caused people in the emergency room to experience breathing difficulties, Battalion Chief Mark Hubbard said.Dr. Julie Casani, director of the hospital's emergency services, said a "code orange" emergency signal was activated, alerting the entire hospital staff and summoning the Fire Department.

The emergency room at Carroll County General Hospital, flooded Sunday during a heavy rainstorm, was expected to reopen today, according to hospital officials.Patients in need of emergency medical attention yesterday were sent 50 feet down the hall to the hospital's ambulatory surgery center, where the emergency room staff was temporarily located.The flooding came during a downpour that dumped 3.58 inches of rain on Westminster in about three hours Sunday afternoon. Water leaked through the emergency room ceiling, turning the room into a wading pool several inches deep.

Maryland is on the right track in trying to do something to cut hospital costs ("Hospitals uneasy over rate plan," April 7). A state proposal would establish a plan to tie medical spending to the growth of the economy. The plan, according to your story, "is making hospital executives uneasy. " Well, let me tell those executives that their present hospital costs are making me uneasy. In early March, I had an allergic reaction to "Z-pack," an antibiotic prescribed for a virus that had been diagnosed as a bacterial infection I suffered for three days with no appetite and little sleep and finally had to go to the emergency room at Greater Baltimore Medical Center.

Gov. Martin O'Malley's gun control bill faces a crucial test this week, when it is expected to receive committee votes in the House of Delegates. Although the legislation passed the Senate with strong support - and despite polling showing the vast majority of Marylanders approve of its key elements - it has produced some grumbling in the House, and not just from Republicans, who have stood unified in opposition to the measure. Lawmakers are likely to consider a host of amendments to the legislation, some of which are reasonable and some of which are not. Perhaps the trickiest area of the legislation is the standard it sets for who, by virtue of mental illness, should be prevented from buying a gun. Existing state law prohibits purchases by those who are found not criminally responsible or incompetent to stand trial because of mental illness - those provisions are not controversial - and anyone who has spent 30 consecutive days in an inpatient mental health facility.

Carl Edgell doesn't enjoy going to the hospital. But he doesn't want to hurt anyone, either. The 44-year-old homeless man has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. At times when he has felt that he has reached a breaking point, he has taken himself to a local emergency room. Each time, he says, the experience has been different. When he has been referred to a psychiatric unit, he says, he has found the physicians and nurses "compassionate.

Nearly 10,000 people in West Baltimore are diagnosed each year with new cases of diabetes, hypertension and other treatable, chronic health conditions — enough to fill 24 jumbo jets. These illnesses will kill many of them and complications will disable others who may end up in wheelchairs or have limbs amputated because they didn't get the proper medical care. This is the evidence the West Baltimore Primary Care Access Collaborative, a coalition of 16 hospitals and nonprofit organizations, gave state health officials as they sought to join a state program that provides financial incentives in an effort to curb health disparities in the state through the creation of special zones.

Bryan Johnson didn't know he had bipolar disorder until he ended up at the emergency room, where he assaulted a police officer. His family had taken him to the University of Maryland Medical Center because he was acting strangely, staring into the distance and constantly pacing as he struggled with the death of his brother and the loss of his job. He was sent to Central Booking as soon as he was released from the hospital, and wound up with a...

Area hospitals are coping with a surge of patients with achy bodies, fevers and sore throats as the nation grapples with a flu season that has hit earlier and harder than usual. The flu virus is unpredictable, so no one knows when the outbreak will peak or how bad the season will be, but a doctor said the pieces are in place to potentially make it one of the worst influenza seasons in recent years. The principal strain infecting people this year is one generally associated with more severe symptoms, said Dr. Andrea Dugas, an emergency room physician at Johns Hopkins Hospital who is leading research on the flu virus.

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. -- A second bizarre emergency room incident in which a fuming body felled medical personnel during the Saturday evening rush was probably unrelated to the first case, authorities said yesterday.Nineteen emergency room workers at Mercy Hospital here had to be decontaminated Saturday night after ammonia-like fumes from an unidentified 44-year-old woman caused minor dizziness, headaches and difficulties breathing.Steve McCalley, head of Kern County's environmental health department, said late yesterday that the victim ingested a common household pesticide called Dursban, which is sold over the counter and used to kill ants and other insects.

Equipment and extra beds aren't the only additions to the new emergency room at Carroll County General Hospital.Susan R. Vittek joined the hospital staff in November as the clinical manager of the emergency department.Mrs. Vittek will play a major role in managing the daily operations of the department, as well as handling budget and staffing issues.For the past eight years, Mrs. Vittek has worked in the emergency department at Northwest Hospital Center in Randallstown.For the past 2 1/2 years, she was nurse manager of the department, which handles 35,000 patients annually.

It is unbelievably sad that Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher killed his girlfriend and then himself ("The tragedy of Jovan Belcher," Dec. 4). The couple had a 3-month-old baby, and it's heart-wrenching when something like this happens. It brings me to tears every time I think of it because it didn't have to end this way. Severe mental illness does not have to end in suicide and murder for the victims and pain for those left behind. Sadly, men are more likely to use lethal weapons like guns when they attempt suicide.

A Baltimore County police officer's weapon discharged as he struggled with a prisoner receiving treatment at University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center in Towson on Wednesday, police said. The officer was guarding a prisoner arrested in connection with a burglary who was receiving medical treatment in the hospital's emergency room, according to police. Police said an altercation broke out after hospital workers discovered the prisoner was hiding a needle in his clothing and the man grabbed a hospital staff member.