This is a story about an atheist college art professor who had a near death experience and saw hell and demons.
But that’s not what I want to talk about here. He was on a trip with his students in Paris when it happened.
In the video he describes the wait time while he was suffering in agony and there was no doctor available to perform the emergency operation on him.
That’s the socialized medical care system in France.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTIcJNdYlcQ
“We were in Paris. And 11:00 in the morning I had a perforation of my stomach. When this happened, the pain was the most acute pain I had ever experienced in my life and it just dropped me right down to the ground. And so I’m twisting and kicking and moaning and screaming and yelling around on the floor, and my wife called the desk and they called an emergency service. A doctor came, and he called an ambulance because he knew what was wrong.
And they took me about 8 miles across town to the public hospital, to the general hospital of Paris, where I was taken into emergency, examined by 2 more doctors who knew exactly what was wrong with me, and then they took me away to the surgery hospital, which was a couple blocks away. And I was parked there, because there wasn’t any surgeon available to do the surgery, and so there I lay for 8 to 10 hours , in that hospital, with no medication, no examination, no attention whatsoever, awaiting a surgeon to come, to give me this operation that was critical. And it’s now 8:30 at night, a nurse came in and said she’s very sorry they weren’t able to get a doctor for me, and I’d get one the next day.
Well when she said that, I knew that it was over for me, I knew that I was dead.”
It’s probably even worse today.
Two more related stories:
Woman lies dead in ER waiting room for hours
A woman lay dead in a Paris hospital waiting room for six hours before staff finally checked on her, it was revealed. A Paris hospital official told the media: “It’s serious, but people die everyday in emergency rooms.”
Naomi Musenga death: Emergency operator blames pressure after mocking caller - BBC News May 2018
In May 2018 in France, a 22-year old woman called emergency services saying her abdominal pain was so acute she felt she was “going to die.” “You’ll definitely die one day, like everyone else,” the operator replied. When the woman was taken to hospital after a five-hour wait, she had a stroke and died of multiple organ failure.
The emergency operator - who wishes to remain anonymous - told French TV that she was under pressure and the emergency services were overworked.