"When Your Water Breaks, Call Your Lawyer"
The New York Times reports in its Tuesday edition that many doctors in New Jersey followed through on the threat to stop seeing patients for non-emergency care in protest of the state's unwillingness to address runaway malpractice insurance costs. One doctor is reported to have carried a sign saying "When Your Water Breaks, Call Your Lawyer" at a protest that took place at Christ Hospital in Jersey City.
In spite of the connotation the aforementioned placard, Dr. Robert Rigolosi, president of the Medical Society of New Jersey said, "We will continue to see emergency cases, we will continue to do deliveries of pregnant women...."
Another article in The New York Times talks about the increased patient load seen by Emergency Departments throughout the state: "A spokesman for {The New Jersey Hospital Association}, Ron Czajkowski, said that some hospitals reported seeing double or triple the usual number of patients, most of them children or the elderly."