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Comment by aag | Hacker News Reader

If someone you know is showing signs of a stroke (see https://www.cdc.gov/stroke/signs_symptoms.htm), get them to the hospital right away. Time is of the essence. Once you're there, don't let overworked personnel ignore them. My mother recently had a stroke. She had absolutely clear, textbook symptoms. She got to the hospital by ambulance right away, but busy doctors and nurses sent her home after two days, saying that she hadn't had a stroke because it didn't show up on an MRI. That night, she fell, broke her pelvis, and returned to the hospital. She waited over twenty hours to see a neurologist, who immediately recognized the signs, and declared that she had had a stroke. True treatment only began then. A second MRI confirmed that diagnosis.

Triage isn't always accurate, especially in overworked emergency rooms.

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Wow, that sounds like third-world kind of treatment. I would consider suing. Sorry that your mom had to go through this.

>that sounds like third-world kind of treatment

You wish you had third-world medical treatment, though.

Having been many times to hospitals in several 1st world countries AND several 3rd world countries, I do not find the former much better than the latter and the 10x-100x price markup is hard to ignore.

Ya, I'm guessing you would actually get better care in a country like Thailand, the Phillippinnes, India, or China. It might make more sense to retire in a LCOL place with good affordable healthcare rather than rely on Medicare. Heck, just get a good policy with evac to the USA if anything major happens you can't handle out of pocket (and at that point, it is probably cancer or something anyways). As I get older, it becomes more appealing to consider.

I had private insurance in China and it was wonderful. I could get an appointment quickly for whatever, the waiting room was really plushy, the deductibles were like 100-400 kuai, mostly the former. The biggest problem is that private insurance in China has a payout limit (around $100k/year for the policy Microsoft gave me)...which...well...whatever.

Hospitals in Thailand are actually pretty awesome. I received surgery in Thailand and spent a week in the hospital recovering.

The hospital was amazing and like nothing I’ve seen in Western Europe. Granted it was a private hospital but the people there were almost uniformly Thai.

Thailand is surprisingly economically strong. I don’t think it’s a third world country.

Thailand is upper middle income like Brazil, China, and Mexico. Thailand has see, to have fallen into the middle income trap with Brazil, however.

Fully agree, the quality of private healthcare in the third-world for common conditions and ailments could be even higher than the first. If they are not being stingy with treatment because everything costs a lot and they're understaffed, then they are thinking what to overtreat because it'll bring in the money. Health of course, is just a secondary concern

PS: Btw Rulopotamus-related? (he was a minor celebrity, loved professor in a certain college in some place of this galaxy)

> Wow, that sounds like third-world kind of treatment.

My first thought was that sounded exactly like here in Canada.

Sadly, I was going to say the same thing. I wouldn't even blink an eye if someone local told me this story. I've heard way worse, and I don't know anyone who doesn't have at least one story like this.

Poor triage and dealing with a loved one suffering the consequences of having been placed on the wrong assembly line seem like very relatable parts of American health care.

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