Jeanette Isabelle made some points in a post and got me thinking... first, hope your mom is ok.

This comes from my experience as a 30 (plus) year road medic....
Take with a grain of salt..... AVOID them.
The ones in our area are basically worthless. Ours do also depend on which 'docs' are in that days. I've seen some write scripts for the respiratory infection. Others won't. I've seen people with OBVIOUS upper respiratory infections being sent by ambulance (often mine) to the ER because 'It's a difficulty breathing'! The docs (staff) scare the crap out of people saying stuff like.... Oh you can't drive because if something happens to you.....

Some REAL advice to everyone is this....

DON'T...and I MEAN DON'T!!! go to them if you are having:

Chest pain (pain, pressure, tightness, squeezing, heaviness, a weight on your chest- or any strange or different feeling in your chest).

Breathing trouble of ANY kind. Even if you KNOW it is 'your asthma' or an upper respiratory infection that you KNOW you need antibiotics for.

General weakness (or weakness in one area or side of your body).

Stomach pain (even if you KNOW it is food poisoning).

ALL of these a 95% of the time sent out by ambulance to the ER.

I tell our vets not to go to OUR local VA clinic if they have these things either because the VA docs also send them out for these things. Got into (and won) and 'argument' with a VA doc who insisted the vet should go to them first because the clinic can test for Troponin (heart enzyme indicating real heart damage) and if they don't have the Troponin, "He saved them an unnecessary ER trip and bill." To which I said if they DO have it, you've just caused a delay in a true heart emergency...Funny how they didn't want to speak with me after that...

When in doubt.... ER. Either by ambulance or on your own....but ER.



Edited by CJK (05/19/18 10:58 PM)