Emergency Room

GLENDALE ? Patients recovering from surgery can rest easy knowing that Verdugo Hills Hospital has opened a second acute-care unit, enabling them to recuperate at leisure without holding up bed space for other patients. The 24-bed unit on the fourth floor, once used to cater to patients needing long-term care, was completely overhauled in September and opened to the public at the beginning of March, said new clinical director Dr. Toon Prasertsit. Prasertsit, who was overseeing the care of eight patients in the unit on Wednesday, said it has helped ease the pressure of increasing demands on the emergency room.

Community Expo spaces available GLENDALE -- Applications for display space at the Foothills Community Expo 2004 are being accepted. Hosted by the La Canada Flintridge, Crescenta Valley and Montrose-Verdugo City chambers of commerce, the expo provides chamber members and community organizations an opportunity to display and highlight products and services to an expanded market area. Each participant will receive a 6-foot table and two chairs in an 8-by-8-foot space.

Amber Willard GLENDALE -- More than a year after the Glendale Fire Department started its paramedic service, it has sent 40 firefighters through intense training for the certification. Make that 41. Last week, Firefighter Ed Marquez graduated from the six-month paramedic training program. "I wanted to have the knowledge to make more of a difference for patients," said Marquez, who started as a firefighter for the agency in 1998. As a paramedic, Marquez has been trained to run a plastic tube into a victim's throat to create an airway and give medication as directed by a doctor while en route to a hospital.

Two men were sent to the hospital and three men face charges of assault with a deadly weapon following a fight that broke out early this morning behind Giggles Nightclub. The fight began at around 2:20 a.m. behind the club, located at 215 N. Brand Blvd., and it spilled onto Orange Street, said Sgt. Dan Suttles with the Glendale Police Department. Noe Alvizo, 21, Jose Rabelero, 23, and Richard Barahona, 20, were charged with assault with a deadly weapon in the incident. Hamilton Velasquez, 25, and Ronald Velasquez, 28, were taken to USC County Hospital, Suttles said, adding the cause of the argument that led to the fight is unknown.

Imagine that it is your first time in the emergency room. When you arrive, everything begins to happen all at once. Doctors and nurses are hovering over you, speaking English you don’t understand. Your family asks, “What do I need? Who do I talk to? Where do I go?” Or imagine having a headache that won’t go away. Are you having a stroke? you ask yourself. No. It’s just stress. So you put it off, because you don’t know the warning signs. You don’t know when you’re supposed to get yourself to an emergency room on the double.

NORTHEAST GLENDALE — Most days, 21-year-old Ana Kumarova is the average first-year nursing student at Glendale Community College. But Thursday, she was a family of eight who had been contaminated by nuclear waste after an explosion in San Bernardino County. "I came in through the [emergency room] and I had to ring a bell, and they had to come out and do an assessment," Kumarova said of her role in an annual disaster-preparedness drill at Verdugo Hills Hospital. After the initial assessment, Kumarova — who wore a special triage tag around her neck that documented her clinical history — was taken to a special washing area where hospital employees took her through a mock decontamination area.

Glendale Memorial Hospital and Health Center celebrates four scores serving the community.The first time Santo Polito stepped foot on the site of Physicians and Surgeons Hospital -- now Glendale Memorial Hospital and Health Center -- he was only 10 years old. "I used to come and make rounds with my dad here in the hospital," Polito said. "I would sit in the emergency room and the nurses would baby sit me. "And when I say emergency room, I mean it. It was literally in the basement.

The House Appropriations Committee passed a measure on Wednesday that will include funds for an emergency room expansion and equipment upgrades at Glendale Adventist Medical Center, Rep. Adam Schiff said. The funds were included in the 2007 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations bill. Under the measure, Glendale Adventist will receive $350,000 in renovations that will double the size of its emergency room and to obtain upgraded medical equipment, Schiff said.

The Flintridge La Cañada Guild of Huntington Memorial Hospital presents the Flintridge Riding Club?s 87th annual Children?s Horse Show on April 25, 26, and 27, sponsored by Lexus of Glendale. This year?s show, while continuing to be one of the oldest and largest children?s horse shows in the West, will bring together competitors from around the country and also serve to raise money to support the essential Emergency and Trauma Center expansion for the hospital. Huntington Memorial Hospital has the only emergency room in the city of Pasadena and the only trauma center in the entire San Gabriel Valley.

Many of you who have read the Feb. 20 article “Doctors hit by budget cuts” may think it has nothing to do with you. But it is part of an ongoing problem that affects every person in Glendale. Under the federal Emergency Treatment and Active Labor Act, every hospital with an emergency room must diagnose every patient who comes to the emergency room. If the patient has an emergent need (roughly a medical problem like a heart attack that could cause death, disability or pain if not treated)