Curry Medical Center Urgent Care overwhelmed with Emergencies

BROOKINGS, Oregon (March 4, 2014) - Twelve of the 38 patients seen at Curry Medical Center's Urgent Care on February 20 were medical emergencies that required ambulance transport to a hospital. This situation at Urgent Care is becoming more frequent, and the resulting problems are two-fold.

Urgent Care is a same-day clinic that can handle a variety of conditions that need to be treated right away, but are not emergencies. For patients seeking Urgent Care, that creates a long wait while staff works with life-threatening medical emergencies that should have been seen at an ER.

A hospital Emergency Department is designed to provide fast, life-or-limb-saving care. Knowing the difference between Urgent Care and Emergency Care and where to seek treatment could save your life.

Brookings is the largest community in the state of Oregon without emergency services. State law prohibits having an emergency department in the absence of a hospital, and although Curry Health Network is working with city and county officials to raise awareness at the state level to remedy the situation, in the meanwhile Curry Medical Center's Urgent Care is the closest thing to a true emergency room.

It is not, however, an Emergency Department, nor are the available services and level of care provided equal to that of Curry General Hospital's emergency department, 25 miles north of Brookings. The hospital ED is staffed 24/7 with on-site board-certified physicians, and has earned a designation as a Level IV Trauma Center.

Just a few of the conditions that are medical emergencies that should be treated at a hospital Emergency Department include persistent chest pain, especially if it radiates to your arm or jaw or is accompanied by sweating, vomiting or shortness of breath; persistent shortness of breath or wheezing; severe pain, particularly in the abdomen or starting halfway down the back; loss of balance or fainting; difficulty speaking, altered mental status or confusion; weakness or paralysis; severe heart palpitations; sudden, severe headache; sudden testicular pain and swelling; newborn baby with a fever; intestinal bleeding; falls with injury while taking blood thinning medications; loss of vision; head or eye injuries; obviously broken bones or dislocated joints; bleeding that won't stop or a large open wound; vaginal bleeding with pregnancy; serious burns; seizures without a previous diagnosis of epilepsy.

It is vitally important to know the difference between urgent care and emergency care, and to know where to go to receive that care.