# do you think hospitals treat people who are "travelling" the same



## daveycrockett

i was so sick yesterday and today i had to go to the hospital they were real assholes as soon as i said i didnt have place to go had me do a spinal tap all kinds of shit and when it got to be 2 am they let me go i said can you help me get somewhere "not my problem" no real help just enough to save their ass if something was wrong. whispering behind me "homeless" n shit fuckin assholes. im not a dirty person either they wouldnt have known unless i told them. if there is a next time im lying my ass off. it wasnt just me i saw how other people were being treated and others were even looking at me like 'wow theyre really being fucked up to you"


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## GetOutOf717

I would like to know this. I've always wondered what would happen if I got fucked up on the road somehow and had to go to the hospital. Currently have no insurance....


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## daveycrockett

neither do i


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## GetOutOf717

I guess I'll have to end up stitching myself back together with dental floss if I get shanked walking through the wrong part of town >_>


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## bryanpaul

they HAVE to treat you....insurance or not, at an emergency room....but yeah my experiences have been mixed ...it just depends on the people .....sometimes their super nice and other times just look at you like a peice of trash.......one thing that does suck if you give them a family member's or whatever's address and you real name and all that....and you dont go through the hoops to get financial aid...you can end up with a big fat billl.....some places will automatically sign you up or cover you with financial assistance other places you have to meet with a case worker or some shit ......i currently owe like over 5,000 dollars total from various hospital experiences......might fuck me up one day with my credit and all....my advice would be to maybe give a fake name......or at least always ask about financial aid...say your homeless and broke


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## GetOutOf717

Hmm. I should reconsider renewing my welfare health insurance. May come in handy. I don't like leaving a place knowing I owe a lot of money though. I'm trying to stay out of trouble for awhile, and owing money is not on the list of things to have on your mind


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## Rager

you'd always like to think you can depend on other humans beings to help those in need...but alas there are always these situations in which they leave you wanting to take a smiley to most of society......sorry for your mistreatment....i've had similar ones ..bastards would not see me because i didnt have ID! Everyone was covering their mouth n noses while telling me to leave..."mind you i had a fractured wrist, a 4 in gash on the back of my head and couldnt walk due to something crushed in my knee" made a scene of sorts  and had to mend myself in the end. i had always liked MT before then too...left me bitter and more apprehensive when needing to for medical help.


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## wrkrsunite

I went to the hospital for strept throat in baton rouge a week ago. They were cool as shit, got a shot of antibiotics, they fed me n my road dawg a shit ton of sandwiches, and we got a twenty kick from a cute nurse. Yea strept throat.


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## Ekstasis

I just got out of the hospital today after having my appendix out. I would have sworn it was a uti and food poisoning. I still am not sure it wasn't. I went in without an ID and they were mostly ok. I woulda gave a fake name if my kid wasn't with me. The emergency room staff were all trashy/crappy looking. Not high-quality people themselves. I had emergency surgery and the next day I had a nurse with a platupus (beyond silicone injection lips). It took me 90 minutes to get pain meds when I rang for her repeatedly. She was only friendly when she saw I had a kindle fire and then her attitude got better. Wtf? I think hospital personel suck half the time anyway. I used to be a nurse but never worked in a hospital for that reason. They aren't supposed to treat you differently but it's hard not to treat people different if they are making you sick from their smell.


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## finn

Hell no you won't get treated the same. Sometimes someone will try to bend the rules to help you, but in general, if you don't have insurance, they will do the absolute minimum they are required to do, and they will try to make your experience as bad as they can.


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## outskirts

Hospitals like airports are a great place to get sick, shit loads of germs everywhere. I just try to doctor myself till it gets to the point
that it's beyond anything I can do, then I break down and go to the hospital.
And in my experience, yeah, you often get less than desirable treatment just for not having insurance.


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## Keith2

I am pretty sure you don't want a hospital to help you find a place to stay. The only place a hospital could find you a place to stay is at a mental institution and I am fairly certain you do not want to go to one of those. At mental institutions they give people drugs that cause brain damage and harm the body. As far as the people at the hospital not treating you good the truth is is that hospitals don't treat a lot of people good. Modern hospitals are designed similarly to prisons. A more comfortable place to see a doctor might be a place where a doctor does a private practice out of his home. If there is a place like that near where you are try going to one of those instead. Hospitals suck.


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## Dmac

i was a nurse and worked at UNMC in Omaha. hospital emergency rooms have to treat you. if they get your real name they will hassle you to no end to try and get you to pay, Evan to the point of sending fake collection agency letters and threatening to take you to court, but they cannot legally take you to court for your bill. just blow off your hospital bill. the hospitals know that this will happen so they compensate by billing everything they can to anyone with insurance. why do you think two Tylenol cost 12.50 if insurance is paying for it?


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## Ridire

This is why I'm learning healing. If I can use medicine properly and patch up wounds, I can take care of myself and other travelers without all the bullshit that goes on in hospitals.


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## wokofshame

Flagstaff hospital hooked me up with a free hotel room, taxi ride there, and bus voucher for the next day for being broke. The hospital social workers came into my room and hooked it up.

But most big-city hospitals have multi-hour ER waits, the best time to go in is early morning after 4 am. when night shift is less busy after their busy hour which is from when they get in to work until like 3 am. Big city hospitals suck, the poorer the city the more fucked up and lower standard of care. I'm super-surprised to hear anything good about Baton Rouge hospital


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## Killjoy

Keith2 said:


> I am pretty sure you don't want a hospital to help you find a place to stay. The only place a hospital could find you a place to stay is at a mental institution and I am fairly certain you do not want to go to one of those. At mental institutions they give people drugs that cause brain damage and harm the body. As far as the people at the hospital not treating you good the truth is is that hospitals don't treat a lot of people good. Modern hospitals are designed similarly to prisons. A more comfortable place to see a doctor might be a place where a doctor does a private practice out of his home. If there is a place like that near where you are try going to one of those instead. Hospitals suck.



Ive been in a psych ward. Allegedly some people there were just homeless and wanted food, bed, and shower. It wasnt like a prison and you arent forced to take drugs or bound to a room. Just my first hand experience though. Be prepared to have to strip naked to get in and or loose your ability to own a gun for 5 years


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## Kal

It depends on where you are at I have seen people treated bad because they are homeless and I have seen the homeless treated good.


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## kaichulita

I went to the ER the other day for a uti and didnt really have any problems. some of the people gave me weird looks and others felt bad that I am "homeless". I gave a fake name and a fake social security number and ended up with my prescription with no problems.


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## Deleted member 2626

You didnt need I.D. kaichulita?


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## kaichulita

No ID necessary. I just said I didn't have any form of ID. It helps if you look homeless too


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## Art101

Been in several states and in my experience if you dont have insurance or even DSHS they treat you like crap.Like a doc explained to me its like going to McDonalds ordering a Big Mac meal supersized and paying half price for it.The only serious hassle I have over a med bill was for a kidney stone in Boise ID and they drug their feet for 2 hours before doing anything.After 4 yrs I still get harassing phone calls from that.


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## Renegade

I have also had mixed results.. they can be fuckheads at times..last time was when i got in a fight and the guy had some type of ring and it slashed my facewide open.. i had to get stitches and they were cool as fuck.. gave me socks ..,a taxi voucher and some painmeds .. i was covered in blood when I arrived tho..hands arms and entire face.. so i think that helped..other times i have been mocked and treated like crap..


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## John C

I've had that experience when I was traveling and got sick.. similar to when I had no insurance and a home. It's as if they think they'll lose their job if they help too much.


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## WieselFlink

once went to the hospital to get an infected spiderbite treated (it was a painfull handsized black spot on the backside of my knee) and the nurse thought i was a needlejunky because i had a several mosquito bites on my arms haha.


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## Renegade

WieselFlink said:


> once went to the hospital to get an infected spiderbite treated (it was a painfull handsized black spot on the backside of my knee) and the nurse thought i was a needlejunky because i had a several mosquito bites on my arms haha.



Geez shes an idiot.. who cant tell the difference.. i get a lot of ignorance thrown at me in hospital too cuz im housless i must be a junkie... pfft.. sorry they treated you like that.


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## WieselFlink

Renegade said:


> Geez shes an idiot.. who cant tell the difference.. i get a lot of ignorance thrown at me in hospital too cuz im housless i must be a junkie... pfft.. sorry they treated you like that.



Don't worry. I laughed at her cause she couldn't tell the difffrence. I mean how tha hell do mosquitobites look like needleholes? Ridiculous. 
I get the junky thing a lot ^^ maybe because of the mixture of punk, dreads and clothes that are falling apart.


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## Renegade

WieselFlink said:


> Don't worry. I laughed at her cause she couldn't tell the difffrence. I mean how tha hell do mosquitobites look like needleholes? Ridiculous.
> I get the junky thing a lot ^^ maybe because of the mixture of punk, dreads and clothes that are falling apart.



Yeah exactly, the way we dress makes a lot of people assume we are on H.. i have had people make me promise not to use money heroin before they kicked it down to me i am like dude.. i have never done H in my life dispite how i look. Its funny to think so many years ago i was that person in scrubs in ER rooms when i finished highschool i went the medical route.. i never judged people based on stuff like that.. i just gave the best Quality care that I could .


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## LeeenPocket

I haven't needed an ER in my travels yet. But once I got to the slabs I got MediCal and tried to go to the clinic in Niland to be referred somewhere for my migraines. The "doctor" was wearing soooo much perfume it actually triggered a migraine. She refused to refer me until she "established a pattern of care". Made me feel like an imbecile for not being on "better" anti-depressants. And she didn't believe that I have a college degree. Like, being homeless somehow makes me a social degenerate incapable of doing anything but begging or seeking drugs. After this, I would have said they were good for nothing but a bandaid, until I spilled boiling water on my hand and went to them for a bandage and burn ointment and they refused and told me to go to the ER. Btw, the ER in Brawley regularly turns slabbers away because we're all apparently homeless drug addicts. At least that's what I've gathered from SEVERAL full time slabbers.


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## Trvshwvng

They've always gone above and beyond to help me out. In Plymouth, NH and Tallahassee they were cool af in both instances. One nurse gave me the code for the staff room so I could just get drinks and shit whenever I wanted.


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## Continental Drifter

I've recently visited a few ER's, and that only because of an infected finger from a deep cut. The staff and/or hospitals are hit and miss as far as working with folks who "don't have insurance." Leastaways they cleaned, drained, and wrote me the cheapest prescription for antibiotics, which I can't find in the wild this time of year...


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## drode

My road dawg got MRSA and they treated him and let him stay until the surgery wound showed it was mending back together, but they were ADAMANT that we get out ASAP.


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## ev wood

I've had mixed experiences. People at planned parenthood have always been really nice and helpful. 
Tulane hospital in New Orleans treated me like fucking scum, the doctor actually laughed and made fun of me. I get that they probably see a lot of shit but I am by nature polite and well spoken (thanks, ma!). It was 9am, I was stone cold sober, relatively clean and had a staph infection that needed antibiotics, there was no reason to be an ass.
Another hospital for low income folks (Cooper Green) were pretty nice to me, but also dismissive and ended up making my issue worse. Also they didn't let the local antibiotic kick in before they started cutting into a really sensitive abscess, the nurse had to hold me down while I bit my belt. 
Once I went to a fancy Catholic hospital's ER for a really bad staph infection (following the Cooper Green incident), they were amazing. I am not a Christian, I was dirty as hell and really freaked out from all the pain I was in. The nurses kept checking on me, the doctors were really kind. I had to be admitted and have emergency surgery, stay there for two weeks on IV antibiotics. The ER nurses would come up and check in on me and all the nurses / doctors on the floor were really sweet and genuinely interested in the fact that I traveled without money. They never proselytized (try to convert) to me, and even sent someone from billing up to my room to let me know about the different hospital charities I could go through to help get my bills reduced and / or paid. 
Maybe the key is to go to a hospital that doesn't get a lot of homeless / traveling folks because they aren't burnt out yet by the folks that make us all look bad.


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## Art101

I had some great "service" at Catholic hospitals.They seem to be warmer and more caring.The hospital in Pasco WA always treated me excellently even though I was missioned up.Harborzoo in Seattle wasnt bad,but its can get crazy.


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