She would love that joke

Where the fuck was she having surgery that she had to be rushed to hospital? Throats R Us?

Nice. If she had feelings, that might hurt them.

@1, the surgeons had to put her under just to keep her from MAKING that joke. @2, I'm thinking "clinic on the Upper East Side" is shorthand for "fancy facelift parlor."

Don't let your elderly friends and relatives have surgery in a clinic or ambulatory surgery center that isn't inside a hospital building. Out of hospital surgeries may be ok for the young and fit but are inappropriate for individuals facing higher risks from the surgery or especially the anesthesia.

She must have swallowed her foot which was in her sour mouth.

"Can We Talk?" Uh, no.

She must have told the doctor that "surgery blue" is not his color and he looked like gay whale.

Before surgery, she begged for them not to sneak a peak at her "Gaza strip".

meant to add this:
Wishing her the best, but comedy is salvation.

@2: My thoughts exactly.

Surgical clinics are set up to handle more minor (and more profitable) procedures while relying on (often public) hospitals to pick up the pieces when things go sideways.

As @6 said, it's all fine. Until it's not.

@11: The obvious solution would be to require those kinds of clinics to have the resources on-site to stabilize patients who have sudden complications so that they're not dependent on shipping them to real hospitals.
Think creatively before you type next time.

If a surgery clinic doesn't have the basic equipment to bag someone who's stopped breathing, they shouldn't be in existence. An ER tech in the back of an van can do that.

@13 yes and no. For a younger patient, perhaps. I'm sure they have breathing bags and a defibrillator, but consider the patient's advanced age. I would not expect a day surgery to have a heart-lung machine, not are they equipped for full-scale surgery. When a geriatric patient suffers a cardiac arrest, recovery by defibrillation alone is unlikely. The odds are, someone will have to crack open her chest, and she might need a pacemaker installed (if she doesn't already have one). Surgical centers transfer patients when complications arise that offer plausible ramifications beyond the scope of their services.

@11, don't fret (before you type) about the hours I've spent pondering these trade offs. I know docs and have surgery done by docs in clinical settings. I know other docs (including my wife) working in the general hospital caring for the indigent and uninsured.

No uninsured patient goes to one of these clinics. No clinic (I know of, but give a citation if you know differently) offers basic ER-style stitch-it-up services at stitch-it-up prices. Socialized medicine was only (1) Medicare and (2) the County hospital providing some services at a profit that subsidized many other services. By "skimming" the profitable work, these clinics do, yes, allow plastic surgery and other optional, non-urgent-care procedures at a slightly lower price and certainly in a more upscale setting. But then what does the county do to pay for care for the down-and-out? Raise property taxes? Let them go untreated? ( *I* don't want untreated TB cases in my area).

There is a simple answer and it is a single-payer system. Until then, these clinics siphon profits for private benefit that previously served a public good.

Your county hospital LOVES it if you have a delivery or get a boob job there. That is what bances the books.

@13 while I agree with you about minimum surgical-clinic requirements, it appears that licensing authorities in NY do not.

"We have somebody in either cardiac or respiratory arrest," said the caller to 911, reports TMZ.

I expect someone in my most basic CPR course to know the difference.

@ 15 great analysis.