Cops shows up at my house - Strange reason

First, I somehow contracted staph infection mostly on my face, neck and hands. I went through a ten day course of anitibiotics and it really did not help much. 20 or so days later the infection begins travelling into my mouth.

So, I'm freaking out, nauseaus and feeling a great deal of joint pain. I went the V.A. and checked into the E.R. Got sick on myself and left without telling anyone. Was too embarassed to walk back to counter. So I left.

At 2:30 a.m. a police officer rang my door saying the V.A. made an inquiry as to my whereabouts. He stood his distance, as if he knew what was going on. I gave him brief reason and he promptly left my property.

I've left emergency rooms before, cause the wait sometimes would be unbearable. But never has anyone tried to track me down.

Has anything like this happened to anyone?

Currently waiting for my primary care doctor to call me back this morning.

yes this is what they do... if you come to the hospital and leave without notice they will send a cop to your known address,safty reasons i guess. This did happen to me a while back,went in for a stone,waited over an hour in the little robe they give you,got sick of the wait so i left...hour later cops at my door... seeing if i was ok.. and suggesting i go back to get looked at..


i wouldnt worry about it. and this was back in the 80's.

reply to post by brilab45


maybe the cops came because you might be the new typhoid mary for the 21st Century

en.wikipedia.org...

Originally posted by acrux
reply to post by brilab45

 

Well....I am a proponent for population control. But would rather see it done in compassionate manner. Thanx for the laugh, I needed it.

Hospitals are supposed to treat you. If you leave before that treatment, but after you've "checked in" with the triage unit there is a 'quasi' liability issue.

Amazingly, the police (tax-payer dollars at work) actually track down those who left as a fail-safe for the hospital... trust me... it's not that they "care".

But if you flag down an officer and beg him to take you to the hospital for whatever reason -- forget it. It ain't happening. You will wait for the ambulance pain and suffering notwithstanding... unless death is imminent.

Odd little practice there... considering how long it takes them to come if there are a bunch of hooligans disturbing the peace in from of your home.

Never had this happen to me before for leaving a hospital. But I understand why they would do this.


Did you register before leaving, or check in at all?

If not, I wonder how they knew where you lived...


I guess they could check security tapes and get your drivers Lic and go from there.......

I woudlnt be too worries about this honestly. Sounds like just being careful and rightfully so. This is where our taxes going makes sense to me. I dont mind these types of $$$'s being spent on our tab.

DIGUSTING



Im sorry, but I honestly do find that comment offensive.

Im not asking you to remove it or censor it, just that that type of thinking is whats killing us.


edited because it didnt represent my views.

[edit on 12-4-2010 by Goethe]

Originally posted by Maxmars
Hospitals are supposed to treat you. If you leave before that treatment, but after you've "checked in" with the triage unit there is a 'quasi' liability issue.

Amazingly, the police (tax-payer dollars at work) actually track down those who left as a fail-safe for the hospital... trust me... it's not that they "care".

But if you flag down an officer and beg him to take you to the hospital for whatever reason -- forget it. It ain't happening. You will wait for the ambulance pain and suffering notwithstanding... unless death is imminent.

Odd little practice there... considering how long it takes them to come if there are a bunch of hooligans disturbing the peace in from of your home.

This is an interesting point of view. Honestly, I am disapointed to see this coming from a moderator.

Hospitals very rarely call the police. At least, in the United States. We have something called the HIPPA law (privacy) and there are some very restrictive guidelines for what we can call for. In the OP's case, they were obviously concerned enough with your welfare, that they thought they needed to check on you. Also, being a VA hostpital, they might (I don't know for sure) have some different guidelines on what they can tell authorities. It is called a Welfare check.

Why would you say that they don't care? I know a lot of cops and guess what? They are out there doing that job for the very reason that they DO care.

As for them refusing to take someone to the hospital: Why in the world would they take someone to the hospital? So let's say someone flags them down and say they have chest pain. You expect them to throw them into the back of their patrol car and run lights and sirens to the nearest hospital? What if they have a heart attack on the way? They are not medical professionals. They would do what any responsible adult would do: call an ambulance.

Again, to the OP: It was nothing but a welfare check. If you are concerned about the hospital sharing your private medical info with the authorities, call the admin and ask them why they called and what was said. There are rules on what they can and can not do.

To the Mod: I wish you would chose your words a little more carefully. You set an example here for everyone else.

[edit on 12-4-2010 by westcoast]

Wait a second. Why didn't they just call you?

Did the police ask to see you drivers license and/or another means of ID?
If not, how did they confirm it was you? Therefore I ask... the hospital could have done the same thing the cop did with a phone call, right? (given the cop didn't properly ID you-not indicated in your story).

You can call the poilce station and confirm also the reason, officer, time and incident number (probably the radio logs also). Good luck.

Also, police get involved because a lot of ER injuries are related to crimes. Gun shot, assault, domestic battery, etc.

Check-in desk may have called police, because they thought you lost your nerve and were afraid for the doctors to see your injuries. Police follow-up was just to rule out involvement in a crime. With a messed up face, maybe they thought you went through a store front glass, or a windshield.

I don't think there is anything odd here.

reply to post by Goethe


The Veterans Health Administration konw everything about me.

Yes, I did check in and left my benefit card behind. I was easily trackable.

reply to post by anon72


They did try calling. About four times. The phone is on low and my bedroom and the den (where the phone is) are pretty far away. Plus I took sleeping medication due to the pain of the infection. Didn't hear a thing.

reply to post by getreadyalready


That makes pure sense. But I did check in specifically telling the nurse about my staph infection. Maybe they were concerned I was gonna go to a 24 hour Walmart and lick the fruit. ????

Originally posted by brilab45
reply to post by anon72

 

They did try calling. About four times. The phone is on low and my bedroom and the den (where the phone is) are pretty far away. Plus I took sleeping medication due to the pain of the infection. Didn't hear a thing.

Well, this pretty much answers the question.

Like you said in your OP. You have been sick with this infection for some time now and when you showed up at the ER you were pretty miserable. You were checked in and waiting to be seen, threw up on yourself and left. They tried to call you several times and you didn't answer. Knowing your history, they were concerned so their only alternative was to have the police do a Welfare check on you.

Hope you get the care you need, but you don't need to worry about why the cops were there. Welfare check.

You must be in America with the best medical care around and Emergency room visits that take hours to be seen by a doctor for only several minutes.

You were a threat to the public health and at the VA they aren't going to screw around with it. There is nothing out of the ordinary here other than they are concerned about you spreading Staph to the area. Or you could talk to the poster, umm Zeus aka Jimmy Phipps about it. He thinks the government gave him staph and is trying to kill him. Or you can just accept the fact that you were a threat to the public health because you have a strain of staph resistant to certain antibiotics which could be a nightmare.

My guess is they treated you with a penecillin derivative or a cephalosporin derivitive. You need to be put on vancomycin. They'll probaably ry to give you tetracycline 1st but being as your already resistant I'd go for the most effective drug, vancomycin.

reply to post by DrJay1975


Drjay, I was upfront with the nurse about my situation. Also, I brought my lab work as well, which indicated sensitivity to all available medications.

I would have expected to have been quarantined for the saftey of others and myself. The E.R. is nightmare of bugs ready to happen. That part was freaking me out. Open sores on my face and other folks coming in coughing and god knows what other diseases I could have caught. I washed myself down with benedine and hydrogen peroxided when I got home. Always carry a bottle of anti-bcterial gel with me.

I think the V.A. is simply not on par to civilian hospitals. I was tight on money and needed to utilize the V.A. If I went to a civilian hospital, I know for fact I would have been handled expiditiously.

Edited to add: I was going to request the Vancomycin...tired of this thing dragging out.

[edit on 12-4-2010 by brilab45]

[edit on 12-4-2010 by brilab45]

reply to post by brilab45


Yes, you definitely need to get a hold of something ASAP. My buddy had staph infection that got into his blood system. He was on IV antibiotics for two weeks. Then sent him home with an IV, and he had to hook himself up and change bags!

I have Bactricin that my family practitioner gave me a prescription for. It kills all staph, including MRSA. I also have a renewable prescription for Amoxicillin (broad spectrum, not great for staph).

Get your doctor on the phone immediately, and get this thing kicked before it is too late!

Good ol' soap and water showers a couple of times per day with the Bactricin will help some, but you need some serious antibiotics to hit it from the other side as well.

Originally posted by westcoast

This is an interesting point of view. Honestly, I am disapointed to see this coming from a moderator.

Hospitals very rarely call the police. At least, in the United States. We have something called the HIPPA law (privacy) and there are some very restrictive guidelines for what we can call for. In the OP's case, they were obviously concerned enough with your welfare, that they thought they needed to check on you. Also, being a VA hostpital, they might (I don't know for sure) have some different guidelines on what they can tell authorities. It is called a Welfare check.

Why would you say that they don't care? I know a lot of cops and guess what? They are out there doing that job for the very reason that they DO care.

As for them refusing to take someone to the hospital: Why in the world would they take someone to the hospital? So let's say someone flags them down and say they have chest pain. You expect them to throw them into the back of their patrol car and run lights and sirens to the nearest hospital? What if they have a heart attack on the way? They are not medical professionals. They would do what any responsible adult would do: call an ambulance.

Again, to the OP: It was nothing but a welfare check. If you are concerned about the hospital sharing your private medical info with the authorities, call the admin and ask them why they called and what was said. There are rules on what they can and can not do.

To the Mod: I wish you would chose your words a little more carefully. You set an example here for everyone else.

[edit on 12-4-2010 by westcoast]

I did not mean to disappoint you. I post as any other member would. I am surprised that you would assume I made the post as a cavalier off-hand comment. The body of my experience evidently differs from yours.

To avoid excess explanation, and to remain OT, I will respond within the narrow confines of the OP.

Presuming that they did care about the patient, how was it that they failed to treat him? Is it because he was simply too embarrassing to look at? Was there a jet airliner that crashed and no one had the time? Or is it more likely that just as most hospitals in America, they are staffed down to the bare minimum and could not even take the time to explain to the would-be patient why and how long he or she would have to wait in discomfort, vomiting and in distress? At what point does the 'caring' manifest itself? .. in this case it was only AFTER the patient had left. Hardly a sterling display of care, in my opinion; and more indicative of the hindsight which exemplifies the lack of 'caring' that these institutions can provide.

I wasn't referring to the police not caring, if it seemed so implied, it was in error. I was referring to the institution of the hospital.

Why would I say they don't care? Simple... I believe they don't. (This is of course a generalization, but one that has proven to be accurate time and time again in my experience.) Hospital administrators evoke protocol after protocol which always serves to indemnify themselves from any compulsory action and as much liability as possible. (Most of the Hospitals in this country were literally "obliged" to post the notices of how patients can not be refused treatment... why do you think that was necessary? It was certainly not because there weren't refusing care.) Sadly, VA hospitals are on the short end of the quality stick unless they are built in some large metropolitan area, where important visitors are common. I have had the worst experiences there, so much so, that I won't go their voluntarily any more.

The side note regarding the police not taking one to the hospital...

...Why in the world would they take someone to the hospital? So let's say someone flags them down and say they have chest pain. You expect them to throw them into the back of their patrol car and run lights and sirens to the nearest hospital? What if they have a heart attack on the way?...

Why would they take them?... I don't know, perhaps because a citizen in distress has requested their assistance? Maybe it would bring that person that much closer to medical help? If they have a heart attack on the way, the officer can do the same thing as he or she would have done if the person had a heart attack while waiting curled up on the ground next to the vehicle. "What if" scenarios are a dime a dozen, but the point is, the police don't do it because ... once again .. LIABILITY.

As a moderator, I have no intention of representing anyone other than myself. If I can't post my opinions here, as a member, why would I even want to be a Moderator? My example is one of civility, and respectful discourse. Not whether or not I endorse the meme of institutionalized medicine and public service all being replete with devoted angles of mercy.... I do not deny that there are... but I refuse to pretend that they all are, or even most of them are.

No offense is intended personal or otherwise.

post removed....on second thought, I don't want to give medical advice.

[edit on 12-4-2010 by westcoast]