Emergency Rooms.....Emergency or Not?

I've recently been volunteering at our local emergency room. I sit behind the window and help visitors when they come to visit patients in the Emergency Room. Whoa, why is this? You mean people actually need visitors when they're at the ER to get immediate help? Yes they do, and I'll explain why.

Where I volunteer, there can be up to more than 100 patients in the ER at a time. This includes the waiting room, patients that are in rooms, and patients that are having other services (x-rays, labs, etc), while waiting to be seen. I have seen patients that have been in the ER in excess of 6 hours from the moment they came through the front door, to when they left.

It seems to me that the Emergency Room is one of the most abused services that I've ever seen.  When I think of an emergency, I think of something that needs urgent attention and doesn't happen during regular doctors office hours. Well, apparently this is where my thinking is misguided. People come to the emergency room when they have had a sprained ankle for two weeks to needing pain pills refilled! Ughh. Of course, there are the patients that do need emergent care, but the number of abusers far outweigh the ones that truely need it. Patients also think that if they come in via an ambulance that they will get moved to the front of the line and treated first. This is not so either. Once the patient has been triaged, and off-loaded off the stretcher, they can end up in the waiting room just like everyone else.

Also, a lot of people think that the ER is a full-service hotel. I've had family members of patients ask me to get them a sandwich because they're hungry. They are not even the patient! There is a fully-stocked cafteteria down the hallway, but people feel entitled to a free meal while they're waiting. Of course we feed the patients if necessary, but can't cater to the whole family and their friends. 

Another reason why they may choose the ER over urgent care over their doctor.....money!  The ER can ask to collect co-pays and money due up front, BUT they can not force anyone to pay. The ER can NOT turn anyone away for non-payment up front, where as your doctor's office may turn you away if you don't have the correct funds to give them as the time-of-service.  

Thank goodness there is a system in place that protects the patients that are truely in need of emergent care vs the ones that do not.  This is called TRIAGE.  

tri·age

  (trē-äzh′, trē′äzh′)

n.

1. A process for sorting injured people into groups based on their need for or likely benefit from immediate medical treatment. Triage isused in hospital emergency rooms, on battlefields, and at disaster sites when limited medical resources must be allocated.

2. A process in which things are ranked in terms of importance or priority: 

tr.v. tri·aged, tri·ag·ing, tri·ag·es

To sort or allocate by triage: triaged the patients according to their symptoms.

Triage nurses carefully determine the severity of the illness and are able to "rank" the patient in order of urgency, not first come, first served.

I personally would not want to go to the ER if it were not a true emergency. You have no idea what you are being exposed to in the waiting room. Though there are masks available for people that are coughing, or people to protect themselves, not everyone that should have one uses one. 

Lastly a great article to read is this... To the Woman who doesn't understand why I was seen before her at the ER.  /http://themighty.com/2015/11/to-the-woman-who-doesnt-understand-why-i-was-seen-before-her-at-the-er/

It helps explain from a patient's point-of-view what goes on in the Emergency Room.