[CFrance]

Originally Posted by mikeod

We recently had my mom transported to the ER one night. As we sat in the ER, ambulance after ambulance arrived. All those patients were delivered straight into the ER for evaluation. Many people were on gurneys in the hallways, with EMTs attending. We saw the same EMTs come in with a patient, leave, only to return a bit later with another patient. This was repeated all night. We were in the ER with my mom for 12 hours. I left and went home to get her things as she was to be admitted. When I returned about an hour later, she was still in the ER because there were no beds available on the floors.

To me the problem is capacity. With no place to admit patients from the ER, they must stay where they are. With no room for non-emergent patients in the ER, those people must wait in the waiting room. Unfortunately, pain is not as high on the triage scale as many would like. Also unfortunately, you cannot treat patients in the waiting room; the staff's attention is directed toward those in the treatment rooms. And you cannot hire more staff if you don't have space for them to work.

Plans are in the works to expand the capacity of the hospital, but it takes time. Perhaps the best interim solution is for the operators of the hospital to expand the hours of their urgent care facilties to siphon non-emergent patients away from the ER.

I plan to look up all the urgent care facilities in the area and put their addresses, hours and telephone #s on the side of our fridge. If something happens, we'll know where we can go, or have to go.