anybody else had trouble getting an xray?

ethan

ethan

ethan

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I was told today that the Hospital in my area is no longer doing xrays to people who injure themselves with a fall, to save money?
 
Ive heard that they only XRay children and oaps. This has been policy for a while now.

In case you are not aware, there has been a shortage of Technetium radioisotopes for imaging and medical procedures. This is probably a throwback from then.
 
I wasn't aware of that at all. I had a fall and think I might have injured a disk etc. GP hopes I can get an xray but does not exclude them turning me away despite him saying I should at least try.
 
ethan said:
I was told today that the Hospital in my area is no longer doing xrays to people who injure themselves with a fall, to save money?
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was a couple of years ago now but they wouldn't x ray my mates leg. when he had the accident the first thing he shouted (over and over) was ''argh I've broke my leg''. ''go home its just muscle damage'' they said...

anyway a week later he steps down a curb and his leg breaks in half underneath him. after his ambulance and x ray and x amount of hours of nurses/doctors they tell him ''looks like its been fractured for a while''

nice work NHS
 
PhillyDee said:
In case you are not aware, there has been a shortage of Technetium radioisotopes for imaging and medical procedures. This is probably a throwback from then.
Click to expand...

nonsense.
plain film xraying doesn't use radioisotopes and is not affected. some nuclear medicine imaging has been slowed down a little by poor availability of isotopes, but not much. i think a canadian and a dutch reactor site that are the worlds main suppliers for medical isotopes were both shut down for repair at the same time unexpectedly, but that was a couple of years ago
 
ethan said:
I was told today that the Hospital in my area is no longer doing xrays to people who injure themselves with a fall, to save money?
Click to expand...

Seeing that the majority of Clinical Negligence claims against Trusts are mis-read X-Rays this would be a massive risk.
Speaking as somebody who works in the Medico Legal department, if this rumour is true then the Hartshill A&E will keep me in work for a long time.
However, it is true that some patients do get mis-diagnosed and are sent away with fractures/breaks.
A few months ago my daughters best mate fell head first into a kerb so I took her up to A&E at about 1am.
Her forehead was a right mess and when she came out I was gobsmacked they hadn't X-Ray'd her.

fao encephalopathy -
Our Trust hasn't used plain film since March 2008 and all our images are on the PACS System.
 
Sounds like a load of ******** to me. Where did you find that out?

dmpoole said:
Seeing that the majority of Clinical Negligence claims against Trusts are mis-read X-Rays this would be a massive risk.
Speaking as somebody who works in the Medico Legal department, if this rumour is true then the Hartshill A&E will keep me in work for a long time.
However, it is true that some patients do get mis-diagnosed and are sent away with fractures/breaks.
A few months ago my daughters best mate fell head first into a kerb so I took her up to A&E at about 1am.
Her forehead was a right mess and when she came out I was gobsmacked they hadn't X-Ray'd her.

fao encephalopathy -
Our Trust hasn't used plain film since March 2008 and all our images are on the PACS System.
Click to expand...

With regards to x-raying her head, they won't have bothered for the same reason they won't have bothered x-raying for broken ribs.
 
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Sounds like a lot of crap to me aswell.

You cant discriminate amongst the injured as a fall has the potential to be life threatening if there is serious damage not visible via the eye.

A hospital would not put themselves in such a position, in addition, X-rays are the cheapest form of imaging available!

If it was an MRI I could imagine this being a tad more probable, but even then, its still sounds wrong.
 
Dr. Pain said:
Sounds like a lot of crap to me aswell.

You cant discriminate amongst the injured as a fall has the potential to be life threatening if there is serious damage not visible via the eye.

A hospital would not put themselves in such a position, in addition, X-rays are the cheapest form of imaging available!

If it was an MRI I could imagine this being a tad more probable, but even then, its still sounds wrong.
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You'd have to have done something SERIOUSLY damaging to yourself to warrent an emergency MRI, even then you can still be waiting days rather than hours.
 
If they don't x-ray, what do they use instead because surely they can't properly diagnose with out it ?

MW
 
dmpoole said:
A few months ago my daughters best mate fell head first into a kerb so I took her up to A&E at about 1am.
Her forehead was a right mess and when she came out I was gobsmacked they hadn't X-Ray'd her.

fao encephalopathy -
Our Trust hasn't used plain film since March 2008 and all our images are on the PACS System.
Click to expand...

i very rarely xr children skulls after a head injury. if they need an investigation they need a CT brain, not a skull xr.

we use PACS as well, but you still need a hard copy print system for the likes of major equipment failure/powercut (which has happened to us already...)
 
Ethan -
I can 100% confirm that looking at PACS from the A&E department there are a lot of images from falls/knocks over the last 24 hours eg shoulders, toes, feet, arms.
 
every time you get an xray it increases the change of getting cancer,

if you xray 100,000 you will kill some of them... or at least give them cancer

the same as air port xray machines they WILL kill people (all be it a very small %)

every time you are struck by a particle of ?irionising? radiation it *MIGHT* cause cancer the more particles that hit you the higher the chances....
 
edscdk said:
every time you get an xray it increases the change of getting cancer,

if you xray 100,000 you will kill some of them... or at least give them cancer

the same as air port xray machines they WILL kill people (all be it a very small %)

every time you are struck by a particle of ?irionising? radiation it *MIGHT* cause cancer the more particles that hit you the higher the chances....
Click to expand...

That is a small FRACTION of a %, it aint donna kill 1 in a 100 (i hope)
 
They will still be doing xrays for falls. They just didn't think that your particular fall needed an xray and it has nothing to do with cost. whether that is a correct assessment or not I can't tell you, but a lot of times xrays aren't necessary to decide on the management
 
I love this sort of thing on OcUK.

Guy falls, hurts back assumes a slipped disc.
Wants an x ray to make sure.
GP Advises against as the re-course for an injury is light excercise over 4-6 weeks and nothing the X Ray will tell him will be different to the "pain killers/light excercise/rest"
Guy still wants X Rays so asks on OcUK
OcUK guys wade in with lots of info about shortage of radioactive isotopes etc.
DMPoole wades in with storey of his life and how he now works for the NHS so is an expert.
Someone comes in with a cancer scare.
??????
Profit?

KaHn
 
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