She called 911 for an ambulance. She got a nightmare instead

pinewurst

https://archive.ph/oD0pz

Supermancho

Spoiler: She died. Seattle offloading 911 calls to on-call nurses who can say "you're fine" is a dystopian choice.

wongarsu

So the fire department routes the call to a nurse who decides how urgent the issue is and dispatches ambulances according to that. And that nurse is employed by the same company who operates the ambulances. I can't imagine a clearer conflict of interest

2OEH8eoCRo0

Seattle must really be hurting for money. Sounds like a very poor town. /s

mjevans

I stopped reading at 'for profit'. Basic functions of society should never be run by 'for profit' standards. Do you want a 'for profit' fire department, medical care system, or law enforcement systems? These are core support services for an orderly society. Citizens that rely upon these services in their time of need often have no other recourse.

cogman10

> They say it’s reducing strain on hospitals and ambulances by diverting low-level patients to more appropriate care. The only reason the city is doing this is because these ambulance contractors are sharks. Ambulatory service is one of those things that should be ran by the city/state and not by some random private company. A private company in this case can only serve to make it much more expensive for the city and people needing emergency services while providing bad service and understaffing and underpaying their staff all at once. You'll get paramedics being paid $15/hr that charge $1500 for 10 minute ambulance ride where the contracting company pockets nearly everything. I get it, cities don't like taxing people for ambulances, so that's why they try and contract it away to avoid that tax line item or savings needed to ultimately buy new medical equipment. That, however, kills people. It's absurd that we can find it in our budgets to pay for fireman and police but for some reason anything related to medicine needs to be privately contracted out.

OutOfHere

Move out of Seattle before they do this to you.

lifeisstillgood

>>> But the city stopped tracking ambulance waits like hers in 2022, so officials have no way to know. This is insane. I am reminded of “we don’t capture Police officer involved shooting so there is no national record” Every management book written in America has something like “if you don’t measure it you can’t manage it” What they don’t mention is “if you don’t want to chnage it, don’t measure it”

Aachen

With a title of "Called 911, you won't believe what happened next", this does not belong on HN

Merad

The situation with the ambulance service is obviously disgusting and immoral in a civilized society. But the article fails to address the elephant in the room - her chief complaint was severe pain in her knees due to RA. If she had been taken to the ER she almost certainly would've been given some short term pain meds and sent home unless she was showing some very obvious signs of cardiac issues. The system had already failed her because she really needed skilled nursing or assisted living help, being immobile due to chronic disease. It happens all the time. Several years ago my elderly father fractured an ankle - no surgery required, just a boot - and was sent home even though he was unable to stand or walk on his own. Fortunately he had savings and I was able to talk him into paying out of pocket for a stay in rehab (to the tune of about $18,000). It's also likely that she ended up in this position because she couldn't afford proper treatment of her RA, resulting in it destroying her knees. I also have RA, diagnosed 3 years ago and my treatment costs $15,000 per month. Losing my job and/or having insurance that won't cover it is a terror that knaws at the back of my mind because without the treatment I'll start suffering debilitating symptoms in 3-6 months.

looselygoosy

Obviously this is very distressing and a failure of the system. What I'm curious about is that she didn't call her son to ask for help. I wonder how much of that is embarrassment over her situation. Stories of bodies being found weeks after death by neighbours or relatives are all too common, though I've usually assumed it happens mostly to the elderly who have no surviving friends or family. Also possibly a cynical take but I wonder if her son being there and calling the ambulance on her behalf would have resulted in the situation being taken more seriously.