Gerrie Heibel: Emergency Care Then vs. Now

"My son was in school, so probably, I'm going to say 1965, he got stung by a bee on Wednesday afternoon and I called the family doctor Wednesday afternoon. All doctors are off. So I took him to the emergency room at City hospital. A friend took me cause I didn't have a car on my own to drive. The emergency room, he had to turn on the light in the room. The nurse, there was no one there sitting waiting for you to come in and she tried to reach a doctor, nothing. And he broke out with hives all over and I had just heard how dangerous a bee sting can become at that, maybe a month before. So we had to go to a local, a doctor who happened to be at home and in the office, that was the emergency room. She happened to be a pediatrician. She and her husband were both doctors that was in the vicinity. So we drove over there and she knew me and took care of him, and knew what to do, but that's what the emergency room was lacking in about 1965. So yes, our health situation, convenience and availability has definitely grown."

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