Reminding you guys of this gem
Wednesday, 12 Mar 2025
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If not hospital taxi, why hospital taxi shaped?
I’m an epileptic and I wish I could have been conscious enough to refuse the ambulance after having seizures in public. Thousands of dollars to wake up in a hospital and have a dr tell me to talk to my neurologist.Â
The irony is, you still need to pay a fucking taxi.
Ahh, America with the “best” healthcare system on the planet.
Our education system is evidently as bad as our healthcare system.
I just think it’s so funny when people defend shit like this. You’re defending the egregious cost of ambulances for what? Lmfao so sad I hope they find love
Ah don’t even get me started on our piece of shit healthcare system and the politics involved in that nonsense.
All I’ll say is that the easiest way to know someone doesn’t know WTF they are talking about in regards to US healthcare is that if the worst thing they had to do was get some prescription for the flu/common cold/whatever from an urgent care and do their annual’s.
Call me when you have been in the ICU / NICU / PICU for X weeks and all that’s involved with that and then we can have a conversation on why you think the US healthcare system is perfectly fine as is.
Better yet, call me when you needed an actual advanced diagnosis performed because what you had was developing cancer that looked like 10+ different other things that doctor’s couldn’t figure out until the tumor started to actually be easily noticeable on imaging and spent 4+ years going from doctor to doctor to figure out why your stomach hurts all the damn time.
In most Western countries it’s a free ride to the hospital with first aid on hand. Not a taxi.
The fact that Americans have to pay for ambulance rides, is frankly incomprehensible.
I remember being taken to a hospital after fainting one night, and they didn’t even have the decency to take me back to the gutter they found me in, so I had to walk about 5 miles home – I definitely thought ‘you acted like a taxi when you abducted me – at least do it on a return basis’
Australian Paramedic here. Some people use it as a taxi. It’s an emergency vehicle to the hospital. The ambulance taxi causes delays to emergencies.
Example
Call 000 ingrown toenail pain 10/10
Call 000 flatmate crying
Call 000 skin abscess
Call 000 mum with dementia and bowel incontinence.
Call 000 Old man so fat he was on the floor and daughter called ambulance to lift in chair. No injuries. Didn’t want hospital just a lift into TV chair when other family was there.
I shit you not.
Our Ambulances have big neon writing that says EMERGENCY AMBULANCE. We are trying to train fools that call us for nonsense.
Seriously I could write an essay on this
not disagreeing here but some people do in fact call an ambulance for transport for non-emergency, routine doctor’s appointments and in some areas that might be the only ambulance running which would tie it up so it isn’t available for actual emergencies.
I love how the dudes handle was scribbled out but not in the reply
I’ve always been told that it’s faster to drive yourself or have someone drive you. So IF that’s an option you do that. A lot of people do treat it like a taxi.
I’m a paramedic, what they’re referring to are frequent flyers that call for nothing and insist on going in, usually homeless looking for a warm bed and the sandwich and apple juice that the ED is obliged to give them.
I found my mom after she had been deceased for a couple of days, and 911 asked if I needed an ambulance when I called. I made it clear she was certainly dead, likely had been for two days at least, and an ambulance would not be needed. They still sent one and I just received a bill for $200 for non-transport. The bill was addressed to my dead mom. I hate it here.
I don’t think the public is aware of how privately these ambulances companies work. You think they’re a taxi, they think they’re a limousine service.
It’s a debt mobile
Spent a year at the fire station here in Taiwan (where they also dispatch the ambulances) after I moved back from the states. One of the firefighters / EMT told me, ambulance is for the old and the poor because they have no real way to get to the hospital quickly and it’s FREE. During my stay here I frequently saw old people calling for an ambulance because of a simple fall. But sometimes that can mean life and death
Fuck the ambulance companies. I once got an ambulance called for me. I refused care when they got there, but they said “were gonna take you anyways.” They didn’t give me anything in the ambulance and charged me 2k dollars. Only for me to just call my parents to pick me up after I got to the hospital and refused care there. They literally kidnapped me and then said gimme 2k. I wish it was a taxi at least I can choose to not take the taxi.
Cultists don’t even know what ambulances are
I have seen too many people call for ambulances over minor issues, save the emergency vehicles for actual emergencies. One girl flat out told me she calls the ambulance for everything because she felt it let her cut the line and waiting room. It’s not a taxi, its emergency medical transport
Bernie is right, but the other two people are idiots. An ambulance sure as shit is *not* a taxi to the hospital, but Bernie was never claiming it was.
An ambulance is for when you need emergency care sooner than it would take to get you to a hospital, or when you are in bad enough condition that you can’t/shouldn’t travel to the hospital by traditional means.
Bernie was referring to people who should be taking an ambulance but decide not to because of cost. That has nothing to do with people who need to go to the hospital, but don’t actually need an ambulance to get there.
Imagine living in the most awesome country in the world and being afraid to call an ambulance. I wonder how many people died or suffered life altering health issues as a result of this ridiculous American reality.
It’s an emergency transport for when 10 minutes is life and death.
Look I’m conservative as fuck, but WE NEED SOME SOCIALIST SERVICES. Fire Dept. EMS. Police. Trash. Sewage. Postal Service. Internet Hookup Guy. These things are critical for any modern society.
It’s more than a taxi. Because they can start stabilizing the patient en route and call ahead to the hospital so they are expecting you and can start to have everything needed ready when you hit the door (like the cath lab if you are having a heart attack or CT scan if you are having a stroke and just plain old having staff ready and available to help your medical emergency)
As a Dutch guy.. jesus christ man. Kids who break their arm get a ride to the hospital from the ambulance when called, without cost. That way of thinking sounds so surreal
My son was born with a severe heart defect. He was required to be born at a specific hospital and then immediately transferred to the children’s hospital next door. Literally 2 blocks apart. I could have driven him there in less than 20 seconds.
Of course they required an ambulance to take him there.
$2500.
20 second ride for $2500.
Insurance did cover it, but it was still a crazy charge.
I saw a guy riding a bicycle pass out, crash and face-plant onto the sidewalk when I was also bicycling. He regained consciousness quickly and asked me not to call an ambulance because he couldn’t afford it.
I just think it’s funny that they crossed out the username in the first reply, but not in the second reply, so they don’t even have anonymity lol.
It’s fake taxi for hospital. You get in thinking it’s a taxi to the hospital but you just get non consensually fucked instead.
MAGA is full of schmucks
In most countries, Ambulance service are free when there is a life threatening emergency.
It is meant to be a high acuity transport for actual emergencies.
Not to be transported for the ankle pain you’ve had for three weeks, because you don’t want to wait to be seen.
The problem is stuff that is obvious BS cannot be triaged out of the medical system, because a doctor needs to document that a patient is stable upon discharge, in effect, holding space for people dealing with stuff more serious, but not immediately life threatening.
irony is blocking out the name, but leaving it in your reply
How many fucking times do I need to see this “gem” before it fucks off forever and dies?
If I had a dollar for every time I had to drive myself to the ER… well, I’d have enough for like 2 weeks of groceries.
Funny enough the times I did get an ambulance ride I owed enough for 3 years of groceries.
I like how they marked out the name only to leave it in the reply lol
For the amount it costs in the US it should come with a high level cleric ready to cast True Resurrection in case you die lol
Ambulance=emergency. Taxi=not emergency. What’s that so difficult for some?
This comment is pretty stupid.
Taxis are not staffed with paramedics and EMT’s, or carry drugs, or expensive cardiology equipment. So….