I have seen the tour boats on the lagoon, and they can be pretty big, similar in size to the vaporetto that do the No 1 route on the Grand Canal. There is only a single vaporetto stop at Osperdale, and it is on the lagoon side of Castello. So it is likely that the OP could not be discharged at the vap stop.

The dock for the ambulances is covered, and designed for the discharge of patients to the hospital ER, but that dock won’t fit anything much bigger than an ambulance.

Curiouser and curiouser
I found this online https://margieinitaly.com/2016/01/21...tal-in-venice/

Of course, reporting the experience of a year ago is perfectly legitimate, but it seems a bit strange

You have to scroll down to see our OP’s reply to the blog.
This part of the blog interested me. Of course, the young man might not work there any longer, but.

“I decided that possibly I might be able to visit the ICU which was upstairs by way of the elevator. At the information desk I was pleased to find a friendly young Italian gentleman who spoke perfect English. I inquired if I might be able to have a tour of the ICU, since I was a critical-care nurse visiting from the USA. I expected to be turned down, but to my surprise, he was happy to oblige. “Let me call upstairs and see if this is possible. Please wait here,” he said”

>Of course, reporting the experience of a year ago is perfectly legitimate, but it >seems a bit strange.

That post by "Debbie Zimmerman" in the blog was from Nov 2016. Normally when people have a bad experience on a trip they post their displeasure right away, but her post here on Fodor's is at least one year after the alleged incident. Very odd.

Just throw it on the pile of details that either shift or are withheld for no sensible reason.

The blog discussed above also contained the following comments from the American former critical care nurse:

"Once inside I observed a center desk and console of state-of-the-art cardiac monitors. No one was sitting at the desk. She explained in Italian that the unit had seven beds and an extra room for emergencies. She brought me into that emergency room, where they treat patients who have coded. I was surprised to see two balloon pumps sitting there. Standard equipment in most busy critical-care areas, I didn’t expect a small unit in Italy to have such high-tech equipment. Now I was doubly impressed. We walked past a room where a patient as on a ventilator, and she told me that she could not take me in there, for patient privacy reasons, naturally."

Again, the OP rants about her experience and contrasts it with "how we do it in America".

As long as they practice competent medicine and satisy the local taxpayers, why should they be lectured from a tourist about how we provide translators, privacy, food, pajamas
..?

Interesting.

Again, I think the kindest explanation for the OP here is that while she received good medical care, she was emotionally distressed by the entire experience of being in a hospital in a country whose language she doesn't speak. And needed to rant about it and exaggerate certain details.

If there's something fishy about her post, I can't fathom what the motivation might be.

Please consider that quality of ER treatment can vary a lot even considering the same hospital. One day you may be the only patient and get immediate attention for a minor ailment, another day you are past two life-threatening conditions and wait five hours with a broken bone.

Another reason why if Italy fell off the edge of the planet I would not missed it. After years of traveling to Italy and been subject to scams, robberies, mistreatment, and such I am so DONE with Italy. Please don't waste your time trying to make a point to the contrary as far as am concerned. A country that, in general terms, treat their visitors as prey does not deserve a penny from me.

Everybody is entitled to have stupid opinions.

Hopefully this guy starts a thread so we can Clouseau him:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017...ch-venice/amp/

I've been wondering how her husband could carry her for 1000 yards. That's almost 1 km, or more than half a mile. I would have trouble carrying a 2-year-old that far.

I saw that 1,000 yards as an exaggeration, or perhaps a misunderstanding. Virtually every time I have asked for directions in Italy, the answer has been, "you walk 100 meters . . ." straight ahead ...turn right...whatever. Always 100 meters.

And in my experience in Venice, the next boat access would be more like 100 meters than more than half a mile away.

As someone else said, if the tour boat could drop her at a dock, another boat could pick her up at the same dock. Perhaps 100 meters away was another dock to hire a taxi to return to this dock, and they did not understand the Jonathan's instructions.

I'm sure this was a confusing, unfamiliar, painful experience. But not necessarily mistreatment.

Rotten spell check! Jonathan's was supposed to be boatman's.

I thought Jonathan was some sort of tourist jargon, like "Cicerone" (Cicero), which is what Italians call a tour guide.

Everybody is entitled to have stupid opinions.>

Yes indeed!

I've been wondering how her husband could carry her for 1000 yards. That's almost 1 km, or more than half a mile. I would have trouble carrying a 2-year-old that far.>

Some would have problems carrying themselves that far!

Don't they have ambulance boats or ambulances in Venice that could come to the first boat dock?

IF you had bothered to read the earlier posts, PQ, you would have discovered that yes, there are ambulance boats, and even learned how to summon them.

thanks thursdaysd - yes mea culpa for skimming too quickly 136 posts.

Cheers!

A tibial plateau fracture, while painful and needing eventually surgery, is not debilitating fracture with an acute deformity of the leg. A lot of people think they have a contusion of the knee and continue to walk on it and finally when it does not get better come to the ER for an X ray. Calling an ambulance would have been a waste of resources and a disruption to the Venetian traffic (which carries its own non negligible risk).

Your hospital roommate was having respiratory distress. In that instance, it is not about you. Let the doctor and the nurses work. Close you eyes and send some good thoughts to the person next to you flighting for their life. Complaining about it is ugly.

It is incredible that they let you stay in the hospital for three weeks and let you recover. A miracle. In the United States it is a struggle to have the insurance approve for 1 day.

You wanted the doctors and the nurses to speak English or get you someone who speaks English. They are busy. If the hospital does not have an interpreter, find one on your own. Or learn Italian. You had three weeks in bed after all.