emergency theatre list

Amor: Note that it's shorthand rather than standard English -- the sort of abbreviated written English you'd find in the heading on a list of such people, or anywhere (eg a form) where space is limited. Similarly:

* 'Patient refused medicine' = The patient refused to take the medicine.

* 'Patient dead on arrival' = The patient was dead when he/she arrived at the hospital.

(I've just invented these examples).

Amor 71 ✉

link 11.10.2019 11:42

Thanks, John. That's why I like MT. Still learning.

4uzhoj ✉

link 11.10.2019 12:06

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_theater

Amor 71 ✉

link 11.10.2019 12:24

///An operating theater (also known as an operating room (OR), operating suite, or operation suite)///

Это я понял. Но что за "emergency theatre"? У них там emergency и non-emergency operating theathre?

johnstephenson ✉

link 11.10.2019 13:44

Amor: It could be a mainly UK term -- I don't know. Note that the asker's quote is written in UK English rather than US English (it says 'theatre' rather than 'theater'). If you Google occurrences of 'emergency theatre' on the UK's NHS [=National Health Service] website (nhs.uk), you'll find it's mentioned 2,200 times.

Note also that the department of a UK hospital that treats people who suddenly fall ill -- from heart attacks, road accidents, violent crime etc -- is usually called the Accident & Emergency Department, or just 'A&E':

[Chorley = a town in north-west England]. (In Australia I believe they tend to say 'Casualty Department'; what do they call them in US hospitals?)

So I would guess that, in the UK, an 'emergency theatre' is probably an operating theatre that's attached to an A&E department or to some other department of a hospital where patients need to be operated on urgently. I'm not an expert, though.

Amor 71 ✉

link 11.10.2019 14:07

John,

The hospital where I work is typical for the U.S. We have ER (emergency room) and of course OR (operating room(s)). OR and operating team are available at any time of the day or night. It doesn't matter if the case is emergency or scheduled in advance. That's why I do not understand the phrase " Patient added to emergency theatre list". What list? If it is an emergency, the patient goes straight to OR literally within the minutes. Nobody makes waiting list for emergency operation. And we do not have special operating room dedicated to emergency cases. If the case is emergency, just use any available room or squeeze emergency patient between two scheduled surgeries.

johnstephenson ✉

link 11.10.2019 17:45

Thanks, Amor -- very interesting. The A&E department of a hospital here (90% of UK hospitals are NHS ones, funded by the taxpayer) is often a department in its own right on the outside of a hospital, which can be locked off from the rest of the hospital if need be -- especially in the evenings, when you get a lot of drunks falling over and injuring themselves and ending up in A&E. The A&E staff don't want them wandering around the rest of the hospital late at night and causing trouble. A&E depts also have their own operating theatres, although they're probably used by other parts of the hospital as well.

** What list? **

Ha ha! You've not been to an NHS hospital recently, have you? Unfortunately waiting lists for operations, even time-critical ones, have been a reality in the NHS for years, but more so over the past 10 years or so as the NHS budget has been cut each year as part of the government's austerity measures.

If you arrive at A&E with a life-threatening problem, the first thing that happens is that you're 'triaged' (that's the official term), if that hasn't been done in the ambulance on the way there. If you've an immediate life-threatening problem (eg you've had a stroke/heart attack/are bleeding to death) you'll go to the top of the list and be seen by a doctor and, if necessary, "go into theatre" (=be operated on) straightaway. However, if (say) you've fallen over and injured yourself badly but your life isn't threatened, you'll only be seen (and if necessary operated on) when the more urgent cases have been dealt with. So you could be left waiting in the A&E waiting room for several hours before being seen and if necessary, operated on.

If you're a non-A&E case and have (say) some form of cancer that requires an operation to stop it spreading, you'll likewise be put on a waiting list and could be kept waiting for several weeks before you're operated on. Waiting lists are endemic within the NHS. It all comes down to lack of resources (mainly those NHS budget cuts) and shortages of staff: a lot of hospital doctors drop out in their 30s as they can't cope with the pressure.

It depends on what you classify as an 'emergency' -- A&E-type cases only, or other urgent cases as well -- but in the asker's case I somehow suspect 'emergency theatre' refers to A&E cases.

All rather different from your hospital, I suspect!

johnstephenson ✉

link 11.10.2019 18:56

Amor: PS: If you want some idea as to why there are waiting lists for operating theatres (and just about everything else!) in NHS hospitals, see this 9-minute clip, which features a typical hospital in Birmingham (in the UK Midlands, not Alabama!) -- but only if you want to. I won't test you on it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYQC2uV6Bpk

(Note that this is a BBC clip, so may not work in the US due to copyright problems).

Amor 71 ✉

link 11.10.2019 22:46

Thanks, John. I thought we are crazy-busy here, now I know somewhere else things are even worse. Some days our ER looks like a battlefield hospital, but mostly it is not that bad. The difference is that most of our hospitals are private and if there is a need, managements can find extra funding to expand. Just 8 years ago our ER had only 30 beds. Than they renovated, and we have 65 beds. Now that is not enough, and they are adding 50 more ER rooms. It's good that you can do that without relaying on the government because, as always, governments suck. I am not sure if that's the case everywhere in the country, because our Westchester county is one of the wealthiest, and administration has no problem raising millions and millions from rich donors.

johnstephenson ✉

link 12.10.2019 11:52

Amor: Interesting -- your Emergency Rooms seem to be going in the opposite direction to our A&E departments! A lot of A&E depts in the UK have been closed down to save money.

If you're interested, that elderly chap Bernard who appears in the clip at 2:45 has a classic Birmingham ("Brummie") accent -- probably very different from the Birmingham, Alabama accent! Also I've now discovered that, like us, Australians also use the term 'A&E department', as well as 'casualty department', although I don't know how popular 'A&E' is there.

Amor 71 ✉

link 12.10.2019 13:24

John, what they mean by "Accident & Emergency"? Does "accident" mean "trauma"? The reason I am asking is that we, for example, treat minor traumas, but if they are more serious, the EMS guys take such patients to nearby hospital which specializes in traumas and is called "trauma center".

johnstephenson ✉

link 12.10.2019 16:48

Hi, Amor. As I understand it the 'Accident' in A&E refers eg to road traffic accidents, people falling off ladders/tripping on pavements (US: sidewalks) and injuring themselves quite badly or very badly, or any incident in which people accidentally injure themselves and either need to be treated, or need to be checked to ensure that they haven't done any serious damage to themselves.

I've seen the term 'trauma centre' / 'major trauma centre' (MTC) used in some UK hospitals but, not being a medical person, wasn't sure of the exact difference between them and A&E depts, so consulted Mr Wiki:

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trauma_center > History > UK

and

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_Trauma_Centre

The first link says that there are 27 trauma centres/major trauma centres in the UK, which is far fewer than the number of A&E depts across the country. The second link suggests that MTCs specialise in the more life-threatening/life-changing injuries, and are currently found mainly in big cities. However, A&E depts also deal with life-threatening/life-changing injuries, and unfortunately some patients who are admitted to them only leave them "feet first". So I'm not sure of the exact difference between them and MTCs. That's all I know, I'm afraid.

Amor 71 ✉

link 12.10.2019 19:22

Thank you

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