emergency
CHCF Center for Health Reporting | February 4, 2013
In early 2011, federal and state officials asked 200 Southern California hospitals to provide information about their ability to survive a catastrophic earthquake along the southern San Andreas Fault. But nearly two years later, almost half of the hospitals still have not responded, leaving some disaster officials frustrated over their inability to help the hospitals plan for the worst.
John Gonzales
CHCF Center for Health Reporting
With an ambulance gurney cradling his defeated body, Raohl Hursh sought peace with his past inside the frenzied emergency room of the UC San Diego Medical Center in Hillcrest. It was his 29th visit in four years, his 12th in a month, his second in four hours.
"I've already tried to kill myself," the former serviceman with a history of mental illness said, vodka-addled and occupying a room where a beehive of doctors and nurses would soon hover over a heart attack patient. "I’ve killed others. ... So I’m being punished for all this. It hurts. It hurts."
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