I have to respond to this post. I have been a volunteer at the admitting desk of TV ED. I too have seen what you saw, and it is heartbreaking. I know the other part of this story that many don't realize. What happens is that the beds in the back, where the sick people are brought to see the doctors, get full. Ambulances are pulling in (you don't see that) with critical patients aboard. I've seen it where every single bed and every available hallway space has a patient in it. At any given time, as many as half of those people have been "stuck" in emergency department beds for hours and hours waiting to be admitted to hospital beds upstairs, and there are none available! They cannot be discharged from the ED bed until a hospital bed opens up, thus, there is no place to which to bring those sick people in the waiting room. That's why the planned bed expansion in the hospital is so vital in every respect. You may not realize it, but the folks working in the emergency department feel very compassionately about those poor sick people waiting to be seen. It's an extremely frustrating situation which should be largely alleviated when the expansion is completed.
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