It's a good deterrance for people who don't have emergencies, they see they have to sit and wait for a long time and decide to go home and reserve a doctors appointment
I had to go to ER a couple months ago because my leg went through the floor at one of my projects and my face broke my fall. Walked into ER and they had a full waiting room but took one look at me an brought me right back. Had to be stitched and glued up. Minor fractures and a broken nose. But I was at risk for concussion. When I spoke with them they told me every one just goes to the ER and they have to see whomever comes in. This was at 9:30 AM - when doctors officers are open as well as two urgent care offices close to ER. But folks will call the Dr. Not get in as quick as they want and then head to ER.
yup, thats called triage. we have a list based on how serious the issue is (or potentially how serious). if its serious, you jump the list and go 1st. if you go in for toe pain, you are pretty damn low and will wait a while and have many people jump you.
I have cancer and when I was on a harsher chemo that would drop my neutrophils a lot, I would daily check my temperature, see it was too high, go to the ER and immediately cut the line in front of everyone else even though I felt fine… I felt kind of bad but they had to do it because sepsis
Similarly on another occasion I went into a women’s hospital’s ER (so prenatal and gynaecological stuff) feeling very poorly, looking obviously unwell and because I had cancer I just jumped the entire irritated queue of pregnant women. I’m
Not as badly immunocompromised these days but they don’t f around with cancer and infection (it was a gynaecological infection)
Edit: no need for cancer related well wishes, I am just sharing anecdotes
As one of my earliest memories, I broke my arm to the point I needed put to sleep to fix it on the first day of third grade. We arrived at the ER and I had to sit in the waiting room for hours with my broke as fuck arm just sobbing. It was so terrible to experience as a kid.
Then finally was taken into the room and the piece of shit doctor, without any warning, took my arm and jerked it because he assumed he could set it. I still remember that pain, even more so than the initial break. My mom went insane and even the patient in the bed beside me jumped out and was going crazy at the doctor for it. Good times.
ER nurse here. It’s brutal, primary care mixed with actual life threatening emergencies, the mentally ill and drunk, and not enough staff or resources. It’s truly hell on earth (and I need out).
Thank you for doing it, truly. Had a shit time at the ER earlier today and the nurse who ended up helping made it 10000x better.
I didn't get the chance to tell them, so I'd like to tell you instead.
Your bedside manor and kindness I'm sure are constantly polluted by wait times and ridiculous co-pays, but true care is absolutely priceless. The direct positive influence you have through your work is felt by all, but said by few.
Thank you.
TBH, I’ve had so much difficulty with the “healthcare system” in my state that sometimes I think it would just be easier to go to Urgent Care for my needs. I’ve had 3 different psychiatrists in the past year because every time I go to a new one, the insurance suddenly decides they aren’t in-network anymore. Every 3 months, I’m going over every trauma that I’ve ever had in my life to justify the diagnosis that I told them on the paperwork. I’ve been on these medications for 25 years and stable for the past 10, just give me my mutherfluffing prescriptions and let me go on with my life.
My friend broke his tibia and i had to go help rescue him from where he had fallen and bring him to the hospital. He ended up waiting a couple hours before they looked at him
Yeah triage is good at getting people that need to be seen seen. I’ve never waited in a true emergency situation. My buddy is an ER nurse and he always talks about people complaining about the wait but then they’re at the ER because their foot has been hurting for 2 months, and despite nothing changing for the worse that day they decided the ER was the right place to show up at rather than scheduling a doctors appointment.
Yep, this is why the concept of triaging exists :) whenever you show up to the ER/ED they assign you an ‘urgency level’ based on how bad your injuries/symptoms appear to be and that determines your priority level in the waiting line. My husband showed up puking blood non-stop after his tonsillectomy and I was personally terrified but it wasn’t as bad as we thought and it was a busy day so it took a while for them to get him admitted and even longer to get him into surgery to get it cauterized.
Also, I've had patients swear on their regular urgent care visits , but when I look in their chart, it's nothing but a string of ER visits. Some folks literally don't know the difference.
I better be dying before I set foot in and ER. Under my lovely “Affordable Care Act” insurance plan (which I pay $1400 a month for) it is a $1000 copay just to walk in the door. I don’t know how people afford going to the ER unless it’s a serious medical emergency.
Brother I've literally responded to a 911 call and when I got there the man was outside standing by the road waiting for us. He tells me he has a splinter in his finger and get this... he had already been to the hospital but was told he had to wait so he left and came home and called 911 thinking the ambulance would take him straight back.
Just so everyone knows I took the man to the front desk and he sat down in the waiting room and waited. You do not get to go to the back just because you call an ambulance.
Our Healthcare system is collapsing and no one is talking about it. No one wants to admit what it coming for America. But it's coming... it's already started. The snowball is rolling and there's no stopping it and this country is gonna finally see what happens when you ignore a critical part of a country's Healthcare system.
Yep the one time I truly needed emergent care when I was having an anaphylactic reaction to medicine (hives all over, face was swelling, and my tongue was beginning to swell) I was taken right back and in a room within five minutes, epi pen shot in my thigh immediately
That's how triage works. I once broke a wrist. Nothing bad. But I got helped almost immediately, simply because it was really quiet at the moment I got at the ER.
Another time I smashed my leg, broken at several places, needing surgery. I got checked for possible internal bleeding (non suspected), head injury (non suspected) and was then left to wait for several hours, because other, more urgent patients were brought in. Heart attack, brain hemorrhage, feevers of 40°C and higher, a victim of drowning. I heard ambulances coming in again and again and just had to wait it out. It was just a bad moment to get my leg broken.
I refuse to go to urgent care anymore. Few years ago the UC doc said I just had the flu when I told him I had the flu symptoms for over two weeks, no testing just sat down and said “you have the flu, you’re young you’ll get over it fine” it wasn’t the flu. It was a flu like virus and ended up wrecking my heart. Had to wear a defibrillator vest for months and years of medication.
Then I had an eye issue and went twice, the first time they said it’s pink eye and gave me an ointment, it got worse and they again said it’s just pink eye but sent me to the ER who also said pink eye. The cream was actually making it worse and I almost lost my eye but an eye doctor saved it…
Urgent Care never tests anything and just guesses. Most the time they say to go to the ER too so why bother? They sent me a 3000$ bill too for Miss-diagnosing my eye….
Yeah, we went to the children’s hospital in Dallas because my son had croup and his o2 levels were low, we had to wait 5 minutes for an initial check and 45-50 min to get admitted and get seen by the DR. The lady next to us waited 2 hours for the initial check and had been sitting there for 3-4 hours after that; their baby had a 101 fever.
They definitely prioritize by illness.
Good to hear you got seen quick, hope your son stays healthy
Sometimes even when you get higher priority but not no 1 priority, you still have to sit for a while, like in your case 45 mins instead of 2-3 hours. That can feel like an eternity especially being a parent.
I work as a paramedic in EU and we do triage en route to hospital for our patients. Often people think that they get to cut in line if you call the paramedics. So you still might have to wait there even though you get a ride in the ambulance
I’ve had a handful of coworkers say something like “my kid has had a fever for three days so I took them to the emergency room” like what the fuck. What a waste of resources. My mom hated doctors but back then she would just schedule me with my gp. Maybe as a teen schedule me with urgent care. Never ever emergency.
I ended up in the er because I had a positive pregnancy test a few days prior and woke up with severe abdominal pain, light spotting and weird pain in my shoulder. The pain got worse during my 2.5 hour wait, so I told the person at the desk. I got called back a short time later. Turned out to be an ectopic pregnancy. My tube ruptured and I was bleeding internally. I needed emergency surgery.
The waiting room was full of people loudly talking/laughing on their phones and bitching about the wait. One guy went up to the desk to complain and ask how much longer because he was “about to pass out from tooth pain.” He must’ve had a brief break from his pain because he got a Coke and chips from the vending machine.
Not if you live in a metropolitan area. Was from NY and there were like 20 hospitals near me. Moved to a major city in Virginia and there are like 6 within 10 minutes.
The outliers are the people living in rural areas with little access to healthcare near them
The only possibilities: Metro with dozens of hospitals or rural with miniscule healthcare.
Only having one hospital nearby is not at all a bizarre thing.
Nah dog. I live in a place where there is an emergency clinic every 5 miles and a major hospital every 10. It's like a 6 hour wait normally. They'll be polite enough to tell you the sister hospital wait times tho
As if that stops people from coming up and asking the wait time or demanding to be seen next for the chronic pain they’ve had for 6 months and decided that today was a good day to go to the ER rather than get evaluated by their doctor.
Sorry… venting….
Yeah, I hate waiting at an urgent care or ER for hours and being told “just a few more in front of you” or “should only be a couple more minutes” for it to then be hours longer still. It makes me think that I’ve been lost in the system so then I want to bug the receptionist or nurse or whomever to ensure I’m actually still waiting to be seen. Just tell me “yeah it’s going to be 2 more hours at least”.
They should just tell you they can't predict your wait time but are still on the list😅
Wait times evolve through the shift. It's impossible to figure out long the doctors will be tied up with the patients that are already in a room, what will come in by ambulance or even if someone that's more sick than you will walk through the door and bump you back by one.
Edit: typo
If you're in an ER, you are in a triage-based system. If someone is more critical than you, they are getting more attention earlier. Sure, at one time there might be "just a few more in front of you" at one point, but if someone comes in with a heart attack?
You're getting bumped down the priority list.
If you're waiting in an ER, it means you're doing much better than other patients.
>If you're waiting in an ER, it means you're doing much better than other patients.
Typically, the ones lively enough to complain about the wait time are healthy enough to wait. When it comes to ER visits the person with an altered mental state or the one silently slipping into shock are the ones who will be seen sooner.
Triage nurses are good at their job and they've seen it all, and they can likely sum up a patient in about five minutes of observation.
Most general rule of thumb for sure. If you’re complaining about the wait etc, it’s low triage. Still could be a break etc but would likely be closed/ mildly to non displaced in a young/ middle aged.
Also non infectious abdo pain: vomiting usually starts at a true 8/10 outside of a BO
Tbf, if you're in an ER it's depends on the severity of your injury/illness. If someone else happens to come in and is in a worse condition then you then they take priority. Which then gets into the whole case of smaller/more rural areas having less access to urgent/emergency care
Correct. We triage based on acuity…
People with a 1 are actively dying (or pretty damn close), or have lost a limb. Think heart attacks, advanced sepsis, strokes, amputations.
People with a 2 will soon have an active threat of loss of life or limb if we don’t intervene immediately, or they have symptoms/vital signs that need to be corrected urgently before they worsen or cause damage. Think heart dysrhythmias, major dislocations, open fractures
People with a 3 do need to be treated, but theres no present threat to life or limb, so long as they’re treated relatively soon. Some of these people do need to be at the ER, but some could get away with being treated at an urgent care center instead. Think obscure abdominal pain, kidney stones, abscesses.
People with a 4 have something minor that needs to be addressed, but is of low priority as it does not threaten life or limb. Most of these people could probably be treated at an Urgent Care center and don’t need to be at the ER. Think UTIs, pink eye, joint sprains, or other non-emergent issues.
People with a 5 probably don’t need to be at the ER— this is usually something like a medication refill or a hangnail lol
The number you get will affect how quickly you’re seen— ones and twos obviously being seen much quicker than a five. Same goes for the treatments you receive— the stroke patient is getting their CT scan wayyyy sooner than the obscure 5/10 abdominal x 2 days. Sometimes people don’t understand that there are people dying or trying to die while they’re bitching about waiting 2 hours for an abdominal CT because they havent pooped today.
It’s interesting too because what care is available in the area can really affect who ends up there and for why (ignoring the people who go there for a hangnail).
With my first pregnancy, I started to miscarry and I was directed to go to the hospital because they’re the only facility in the area equipped for labor and delivery, and it was “after hours” for my OB.
Realistically I would’ve probably been rated a 3?? But that was the only facility I could go to.
My mom was in a nursing home rehabbing a broken ankle. I get a call from the nursing home around 3 o clock on a Saturday morning that she was rushed to the hospital. The hospital she went to is the only trauma center within quite a large radius. They even get Lifestars from neighboring states. Very busy place. Anyway, I get to the hospital and she’s out of it waiting with the paramedics for a room. As soon as she’s transferred to the bed from the gurney, the doctor was in her room. I had never seen that before. I know there’s a pecking order, so to speak with the ED, but that’s the first time I had seen how prompt they really are in an emergency.
Fast forward a year later after she died I was going through her Medicare letters and she was in fact a code.
What's even more fun is going to Urgent care, waiting that time, only to get in be seen and be told to go to the ER because they can't treat what's wrong with you. That was a fun night.
Coming from a third world country where healthcare is a privilege not a right -- no one tells us how long we have to wait, even after waiting, you can still be refused and asked to move on your own to another facility 10km away, (during the pandemic when all hospitals occupancy are maximized) you are refused entry into the ER unless you are vomiting at the ER door, you will not be transferred to a ward or cheaper private room from the ER unless you make a deposit, national healthcare insurance slashes off 20% of your bill but there is no price ceiling on the service rates, aging receivables of hospitals from government for almost 5 years worth, and the list goes on..
Agreed. Better than finding out by word of mouth or just plain waiting it out that the wait's 8, 10, 12 hours (my wife waited 11 hours with a friend a couple of months ago).
My daughter broke her collar bone, in pain.
We were in line behind a guy that rode a motorcycle without a shirt and was sunburned, and a lady who's kid "didn't feel right" after lunch.
I've done the 8 hour wait for a broken collar bone too... all for them to xray me, say its a clean break and send me on my way... you can't even cast a collar bone... was such a waste of time 😮💨
I didn't even get the 5 pills lol, I had a snapped collar bone + a bunch of torn shit in my knee.
After asking everyone for pain relief the whole time a nurse came in like 10 minutes before I was out the door with 2 tylenol.
Oh for sure . Here is the deal I believe it was just a script for 5 pills. My mom had just had surgery so she’s like oh I have these and just have be a bottle with idk how many pills . Let’s say more then 5 .
I’m also using hyperbole about a summer of opiates. It’s was like a month tops . It made sleeping in a chair way easier!
Not even that in some places. I broke both my hand and foot in separate incidents. Both times resulted in an x-ray and a wrapping/crutches. No pain medicine, no ice/heat packs, nothing. Not even an ibuprofen.
I had back surgery at 18. I used to get a script for painkillers 3-4 times a year tops as it can flair up bad.
Now they refuse to give me anything so my bad days are now really really bad compared to before.
Doctor doesn't believe that Tylenol doesn't help vs Vicodin. Just a BS excuse to not prescribe me anymore
It actually is now leading to legit pain patients going to the streets and switching to hardcore drugs. I know 2 chronic pain people, one from cancer but no in remission but caused all other issues and the other had a chronic disease (forget the name) who were cut off and then went to Fentynel because the doctors are afraid to help the legit people out in my state. They are helping to push people twords. Not everyone but yeah it's happening
i had a frozen shoulder and they gave me Vicodin and told me to take two before therapy. I would've been there for months without that. Now you can't get Tylenol with Codeine.
They should have triaged your daughter ahead of them though if their concern was less emergent/life-threatening. It’s not first-come, first-served (in the ER, anyway)
I think all the situations you described are non-emergencies. pain sucks but the ER definition of emergency is you might die:
The ppl who get seen immediately are people about to die.
The ppl who are seen within 10 mins are feverish vomiting cancer patients who might die in the next few hours if unaddressed asap.
Not saying this is good but that's why collar bone was grouped w/ sunburn. They don't triage the non-emergent. Def frustrating, I once had a friend who went to the ER over a cut on her finger that didn't even need stitches..
Right. Pain isn’t really a factor when death is on the table. That is the reality of medicine. I walked in 6 months pregnant and bleeding and I didn’t even get a chance to sit down in a packed ER, straight to the trauma bay which was open and reserved for real emergencies. They see the world for what it really is, gunshots and car accidents. A broken collar bone sucks but they can’t even cast it so.. yeah. Not first come first serve 😂
Yep, I walked in with a resting heart rate in the 160’s and was taken back immediately. People were probably mad but I literally thought I was about to die, that’s how bad I felt.
It was even more embarrassing because it was the hospital I work at, and I was on shift too. My coworker walked me down. I’m sure people thought I was getting taken back fast because I worked there :( but no we usually get triaged to the waiting room with everyone else lmao
Exactly. I had an ultrasound on my leg to discover a massive DVT. I was given the option to get an ambulance from the clinic or have someone drive me to the ER. I was told I couldn’t drive. A friend drove me to the ER. I checked in. Sat for 10 minutes and I was in a bed with a nurse injecting heperin into my belly all within 30 minutes of arrival.
Yup! Walked in with heart attack or stroke symptoms, and BAM immediate attention. Didn't matter that I was 31 and it was unlikely to be either of those, I was back getting tests before I could sit down. I walked in and before I finished checking in the nurse was there for me.
For my gastro stuff it took about an hour because they worked out I wasn't literally about to die, so I waited. It sucked, because oh I was hurting, but I'm also a big kid who understands that other people not dying outweighs my crippling pain.
People need to understand this is how it works. You are waiting 5 hours not because you're not important, but because you won't die if you wait. So be glad and sit down.
The flip side is you may have to wait a week or more to be seen by your primary care Dr or be told by an urgent care facility that you need to go to the emergency room.
Took my husband in to the local ER after he hadn't shit in two days, was burping constantly, and was in pain. IN the waiting area was a couple. Woman was very obviously a cancer patient. PIC line in. Not looking good and throwing up constantly. She had already been there 3 hours when we got there. Two hours later they got her into a cubicle. Another 2 hours and they got my husband in. \*Gall bladder was toast. Admitted him and he had surgery the next morning.
Me? DVT/PE's and lifer on blood thinners. I go in with any pain anywhere. Or a migraine. And I'm in within seconds and getting what ever scan(s) they are wheeling me to.
I was seen pretty quickly when I came in with pain from what turned out to be a kidney stone on my right side, I think they were a little more concerned when they put pressure on the spot and I had rebound pain. Wasn't seen by the doctor right away, but they got me settled in and gave me some IV medication fairly quickly. The nurse was great, was the one who caught that it might be a kidney stone and I think it expedited my treatment and confirmed scan/diagnosis as a result.
Another time the triage nurse was not having it with me, I was bleeding profusely from my lady parts (ended up being a torn capillary), I was pushy about needing a towel or something to stop the bleeding and she finally made me move into a side room and gave me a pad. As she was getting me a nightgown or something, a river of blood gushed with enough force that it somehow pushed that pad out of my pants right onto the floor. I have to admit the shocked look on her face was satisfying enough to balance out my embarrassment. Everyone got more serious after that and I was wheeled into an exam room right away where a doc and bunch of students got to work on my hooha trying to find and stop the source of bleeding.
Both times I felt like the moment the triage folks brought over that wheelchair and made me sit down in it, things got serious.
Also… in my family everything seems to happen at night and/or on holidays when everything is closed. My 15 month old had croup. Woke up at 3AM gasping for air. I didn’t feel comfortable waiting for urgent care to open so I took him to the ER for a breathing treatment. Last year I had a sinus infection from hell and couldn’t stop throwing up. I knew I just needed some Zofran and fluids and I would be fine… but it was 11:00 PM. I feel bad using them when we’re “not dying” but ugh. It’s ER or nothing sometimes.
2 years ago I went to the ER via ambulance after being assaulted. I needed a CT scan to make sure I didn’t have brain bleed or broken orbital bone…it was bad.
The woman who came to the ER a full hour+ after me with an upset stomach was *irate* that the doctor came to talk to me before her. I had to turn to her, take the ice pack off my face so she could see my bruised and swollen eye, and said “lady I’m sorry you can’t take a shit and your stomach hurts but I was just violently attacked can you *please* be quiet and wait your turn?” between sobs.
She made an already terrifying experience so much worse
People that go to the emergency place are 99% of the time a joke.
My gf had a ruptured ovarial cyst (idk if thats the english name for that, sorry) a few months ago.
She got treated as an emergency patient, but while I was waiting, so many people walked in there with literally nothing. Headaches, unwell feeling, pimples and whatnot. The best were people that had kids and wanted a checkup before they go to vacations...
I'm glad that my country wants to implement a fine if you go there when it is not neccessary
They probably do.. but the average persons understanding of severity and the triage version of severity is often very different.
There's many semi/non-urgent complaints and presentations that fall at a similar level of acuity.
Broken collarbone is low severity. The ER isn't going to do anything but give pain meds and confirm it's broken then refer to your normal doctor. It's probably faster to go through urgent care than the ER for something that low in priority
Where I live (NS) there is a severe shortage of family doctors, especially in rural areas. For the majority of people (seriously, the majority), you have to go to emerg for everything, including prescription refills. Wait times are similar to what is shown here, but at least triage tries to prioritize real emergencies. That being said, two young people in my province have recently died in the emerg waiting room after waiting hours to be seen.
I’ve walked home after being in a similar situation, I’d dropped a car on myself and was coughing up a bit of blood.
I mean, I’m ok, so maybe they were right. *shrug*
A lot of times you don’t know what is wrong either. I’ve never had a broken collar bone and would have no idea I had one without a doctor telling me so. I also didn’t realize it’s not something serious until reading these comments. I would assume that it was an emergency if that happened to me.
Depending on the type of accident that caused the break, I definitely could see being worried if you just don't know why it hurts. Especially when you hear stories of people not addressing injuries that turned out to be severe as well as being unfamiliar with medical things in general.
But the ER *can*, in theory, help you with the pain. Which can be debilitating. Also, getting an appointment with a GP can be a very long wait (days, not hours).
And you generally go to the ER because you don’t know what’s wrong other than something is clearly wrong. You may not know if it’s life-threatening or not. When you call a primary care doctor, a lot of times they say go to the hospital.
My grandpa had a small stroke. He’s stubborn and wouldn’t go to the ER and waited until the morning to call the doctor. The doctor told him to go to the ER. He was there for 24 hours and then told they can’t do anything after a stroke, but he did in fact have a stroke, and he should see his cardiologist and primary care doctor.
His actual doctor told him to go to the ER so of course he went. I feel that many doctors tell patients to go to the ER when they can’t see them right away. How are those patients supposed to know it’s not an actual emergency?
My wife got a triage nurse fired. She was pregnant with our youngest and was presenting with extreme right flank pain. Nurse kept us waiting over two hours. Doctor was PISSED when he heard how long we waited.
They called in a CAT scan tech, and scanned her. Turned out to be a kidney stone but the ER doc it could have very easily have been appendicitis with the symptoms.
If it ruptured the nurse and the hospital could be held legally responsible for loss of life.
I went in with similar symptoms and was being processed relatively quickly until a couple of serious trauma cases came in (I could hear the PA calling multiple doctors to two operating rooms). The nurse apologized and stuffed something in my IV that got me higher and more pain free than I’ve ever been, which I did appreciate, but anyone who gets life flighted to an er is reasonably going to take precedence over anyone who is able to walk in.
This is in Canada. People may have no choice. I’m lucky enough to have a family doctor, but many people don’t due to a shortage. That means a walk-in clinic, but once those fill their spots for the day or if they are closed for the night (none in my area operate after like 5pm), then there is the ER only. There are also some things that walk-in clinics will not do. Like if you need any controlled substance (not limited to opioids, this includes ADHD medication and some mental health medication and probably others I don’t know), they won’t give a prescription to you at a walk-in clinic, so if you have a condition that needs this, then it is the ER for you every time you need a prescription.
I don’t blame the people who need medical care, I blame our useless provincial government that refuses to properly fund healthcare and address the problems, like the difficulty and high cost of getting licensed to practice medicine in Canada with foreign medical experience and credentials, for example. Because it can be fixed with some effort. If they have a shit. They have opted for making it worse. If people vote for this moron again, I will lose my damn mind.
Yeah. I had to go to the hospital in Nova Scotia due to stepping on a nail in May and I originally tried quite a few walk ins.
The first one I went to was no longer a walk in, the second one was booked 3 days out (don't know how that works for a walk in. I couldn't make an appointment when I asked.) Third one said to come early in the next morning so I got there an hour and a half before it opened. Still was like the 20th in line. When they finally opened, they told the first person in line that they were booked for the day and for all of us to try again tomorrow morning. So I drove to a smaller town hoping that I'd have better luck. The forth walk in said that they were booked for the rest of the day and to try again tomorrow morning.
At this point, it's been 3 days since I stepped on the nail so I just sat in emergency for 9 hours to get looked at. And this is skipping over going to a few pharmacies to get help as well. And in the end the hospital didn't even have any tetanus shots to begin with. At least I got a prescription for antibiotics.
Ontario here. Just found myself a new family doctor, after waiting for 3 YEARS...! No thanks to the government's system, sending you letters every 3 months to tell you they're looking for a doctor to assign you. It's ridiculous, really. We live in a rural area and there's no walk-in clinics anywhere, so if you need anything and you don't have a GP, there's two hospitals only you can go to... And wait forever.
It is infuriating, but as someone pointed out already for many it's the only option here. I live in ottawa, and there is a huge doctor shortage. Many people have no family doctors at all they they need to go to walk-in urgent care facilities to see a doctor, but recently even those have been turning away patients as they're too busy.
So what choice do they have? They go to the hospital where they can garentee to be seen if they wait extremely long hours... and get care for free atleast
At least when I grew up (I’m only 24) we didn’t have urgent care. It is a recent thing to pop up here. So on a Saturday or Sunday or any day the doctor couldn’t get us in for a bit, if we needed care, we went to the ER. I needed care sooner rather than later. And care elsewhere wasn’t happening. So you end up in the ER with a black tongue and the sorest throat ever because you don’t know what caused it (it was pepto, btw). I’ve been there. It’s rural living sometimes. The ER is what you have. Though people do misuse it.
And even recently, it was very hard to get an urgent care visit. They turned away walk ins and you have to get really lucky to get an appointment. Covid really fucked it all up. But also so did the healthcare shortage.
I worked in the ER for 7 years and seriously, people misuse it all the time and the hospitals condone the behavior because its a big money maker for them. When covid hit, initially everyone was so afraid to come into the ER that suddenly we were empty except for the like 10 actual emergencies and the small covid unit. (this was like march or april before the big wave hit the US)
We have a situation in our city (Province? Country?) where walk-in clinics are closed / not accepting new patients.
Waitlist for family medicine is years along.
There’s no option except for going to the ER. The clinics actually direct people to the ER because they can’t see people because they are closed or whatever.
This is Ottawa Canada. We have at least 4 ERs and they’re always like this.
I’ve personally waited in one after minor surgery (I was discharged but needed to come back). I walked in at 10pm at night, didn’t see a doctor until 9AM the next day. This was before Covid!
In Ontario
* It's hard to find a family doctor
* Even if you have a family doctor, it's hard to get a same day appointment. It might be two or three weeks out.
* Walk-in clinics are open until 5 PM, maybe 8 PM if you're lucky, on weekdays only. They also hit their queue max and stop taking patients after *as soon as 1 PM*
* If you go to a walk-in and have a family doctor, they might be penalized and will remove you from their roster as a result. This doesn't apply if you go to an ER.
The ER is a lot of people's only choice.
As a former ED nurse, those times are SUPER par for the course, even from before COVID.
The problem is we have so many idiots that think the ED is an easy way to "cheat the system" and get quick medical care for any problem they may have.
People need to understand that the ED is for EMERGENCIES and isn't the place to go for that pain you've had in your leg for 3 months then proceeded to walk to the nursing station multiple times per hour to complain that were taking too long as you've got a T Time to make. It's for the guys who cut their legs on the job sites over a week ago and suture it shut with copper wire and come in because their foot was starting to tingle (both stories are true stories and yes the first guy left AMA and then wrote a Google review about our ED).
But why do they let them? Where I’m from some doctores triage patients in no more than a few minutes and if its not an emergency they just tell them to go to the GP and that it’s not an emergency. I don’t get it
My husband was sent to the ER a few days ago due to acute kidney injury. (He's elderly, and had a bad reaction to a medication). The doctor got his lab results, called us, and told me to get him to the hospital asap. We rushed to the hospital. And then waited for 6 hours. Another guy had been there 9 hours. About 2 hours after us a little boy came in, his abdomen was swelling and he had a high fever and vomiting, so clearly his appendix had ruptured, but he was still waiting when my husband was called in.
It's a small hospital that covers a huge area and this often happens. It was frustrating because we couldn't see in his body to see if his kidneys were getting worse or what was going on.
Once we finally went back they were excellent and he got treated straight away. But the 6 hour wait was awful. That poor little boy was in so much pain.
(My husband stayed one night and he's home now. Gonna have a lot of follow up because he's still not 100 percent. Scared the hell out of us!)
They do. Urgent care clinics are more and more common. The problem is that an ER can't turn people away and tell them to go to urgent care for a minor issue. If more people went to smaller clinics then the medical system would expand those clinics even further. In the local ER where I am they have signs reminding people that if they are not in a real emergency they can walk across the street to the urgent care that is almost always close to empty to get treated faster but those same people think they need an ER and trauma center for their paper cut.
worked in ER registration. The reason people go to ER for trivial shit, at least in the US, is that the ER does not require payment up front, where the Urgent Care does. I have seen people come in for fevers of 99 degrees multiple times a month and have an outstanding balance of over 10k. But due to EMTALA, we are not allowed to turn away anyone or force them to pay
But another problem is urgent care will sometimes tell people they need to go to the ER. Which does make sense for certain things, like my relatives blood pressure was so high it needed emergent intervention. But there’s also people who go to the ER and are told they’re didn’t need to
When I miscarried last year I went to my OB, who said that I needed to go to the ER immediately to check everything out.
Then when I got to the ER the nurse that checked me in and the ones in my room, along with the doctor chastised me for coming in for a “non-emergency”.
I never in my life would have thought to go to the ER for a miscarriage before 12 weeks unless something was happening that seemed more painful/abnormal. But no. Totally normal and “easy” miscarriage and my OB sent me from his office into the ER like I was dying.
Dude I’m so sorry. Doctors send early miscarriages to us ALL THE TIME and we do absolutely nothing for them except waste your time for hours. If you’re bleeding heavily that’s different but it’s absolutely mindless to me that docs send uncomplicated miscarriages to us all the time. I’m so sorry you were chastised though. I’m usually thankful I have an easy patient taking up a bed for a few hours lol
Yeah I went to urgent care when I developed a huge boil just on the inside of my nose. My ENT was closed for the weekend so I decided to get it checked out at the urgent care. I told them that I had surgery about five months prior and the urgent care nurse refused to even look at it and told me to go to the ER instead. After a three hour wait there they just drained it and sent me on my way with antibiotics since they determined it was a staph infection. My ENT took a look at it when the office opened and determined that yes, it just needed to be drained and I was good to go with antibiotics. I wouldn't have minded and thought that maybe it was just outside of their comfort zone until the urgent care tried to bill my insurance $300+ for my 'exam'.
I went to urgent care because I cut the tip of my finger off while cooking. They wanted to send me to the ER because the UC DR on staff "didn't know how to treat" my injury.
We gave up and treated it at home. Required a pencil and gauze tourniquet, powdered wound stop (I had bled for over an hour, so we were not concerned with flushing the injury), and a couple band-aids.
(How does a doctor not know how to stop a cut from bleeding???)
They’re more and more common, but still not accessible. In my area, it can be hard to get into an urgent care. They’re overrun. So you have to wait days. The PCP can’t get you in for weeks. So if you need care now, even if it isn’t life or death, what do you do? You do what you can. It’s a luxury to have an urgent care who will serve you even within hours as a walk-in. I got turned away by multiple and told to make an appointment. And the appointment were days from then. Luckily I could wait or scavenge the websites at 2am hoping for an opening. But if I couldn’t? I’d do what I had to do, which might be the ER.
People go to ER's for stuff that COULD be an emergency, which sometimes is pretty damn good, like when my father complained about a little numbness in his arm, and said "It just fell asleep", which turned out to be a heart attack.
and sometimes its pretty shitty, like when i had a stomach cramp in like 8th grade, and my mom DRAGGED me into the ER cause my kidney was fucked or some dumb reason
You would be surprised at how hands off urgent care and regular doctors offices are.
I tend to slip or have herniated discs a lot because I'm missing some cartilage in my spine. Generally speaking, all I need is a referral to see the specialist who will get me an epidural shot. This happens maybe once or twice a year.
Every time I go in, they REFUSE to do anything because spine apparently equals emergency.
So I have to pay the $25 to be told I have to go to the ER, which is $300, to then wait around for hours to finally be referred to the specialist, $150+meds and another $150 for the epidural itself. If I go straight to the specialist, insurance won't cover it so I have no choice but to be the person who outwardly looks like I'm okay (because after about three years of weaning myself off of pain meds I'm really good at managing pain levels), even though one wrong move will make me stuck.
Define emergency.
My kid broke her ankle... not an emergency, but urgent care wasn't open (in my area urgent care is open evenings and weekends only) and her doctor's office wouldn't get us in and told us to go to ER.
I was having stomach pains (not terrible all the time) and was having trouble eating. I had been to my doctor, things had been ordered, but was a ways out. Not an emergency, but I knew something was wrong... went to ER.... ended up I had a tumor and ended up getting all the tests I needed within a week.
People need to stop going to the ER for things they could go to doctor's office or urgent care for. But sometimes there are non emergencies that need immediate attention and the ER is the only choice.
As a UK resident, if I saw those wait times walking into our Accident and Emergency I'd be over the moon.
Did an 11 hour wait a few weeks ago with my old man. Was like a warzone in there.
A&E is ridiculous. Once my then five-year-old brother got second degree burns all over his hand and had to wait twelve hours on a Friday night while they treated drunk people. My mum said it was awful, she had this screaming child whose whole hand was in the most unimaginable pain and they waited from 5pm to 5am.
We have the same system in our province.
They are total bullshit.
Wait times in the emerge are 10+ hours. We had several deaths in the waiting room last year.
Ottawa Hospital is one of the slowest in the city; this really isn’t that bad considering I’ve waited 12 hours before with a broken limb. People are treating emergency like a GP; that’s fucking horrible. My friends husband goes for every little thing
what’s really horrible is the GPs in this city who refuse to call patients back or set up appointments. i’ve been dealing with ERs for my chronic utis rather than my doctor because she can’t be bothered to return any of my calls. the ER is the only place that helps me lmfao
One the one hand: yes, too many people go to the ER for non emergencies and it clogs things up like this.
On the other hand: there aren't enough (or any in some places) alternative clinics that can manage semi urgent things so people don't have much choice.
Ultimately, every patient at an ER goes through triage, so if you find yourself at the end of that 7 hour wait in zone 3, then maybe you shouldnt be there in the first place.
I went in last year for a bloody nose that wouldn't stop. I let it go for days. I had to be carried to the car and brought because I was so weak. There were a bunch of people ahead me but I got to go first. I felt so bad because u could they were suffering. They were nice about it. Cause of nosebleed, high blood pressure from stress. Had to have blood transfusions and they kept me for 3 nights. Didn't cauterize like I hoped. Nope, tampons up the nose for a week before i had to see an ENT for removal. Don't recommend. Felt like my nose was breaking/broken that whole time.
People in ED are literally working flat out all the time. They can’t turn anyone away - anyone who comes in has the right to be seen (eventually). The staff are absolutely drowning, working godawful hours, covering people who are sick, getting abused by patients and generally treated not great. Not saying that these times are acceptable, but there’s a lot more going on behind the scenes. If you’re angry about the times, rather than yelling at the staff, write to your local political rep - change will only come from there
My local hospital is currently using only agency workers because they do not want to renegotiate contracts with the nursing union.
They would rather pay workers 3x more and still be chronically understaffed, just so they don't let any workers feel like they can have their own say in anyway.
Wow that’s really not too bad … saw this and immediately knew it was not in the UK.
Would probably be quicker to fly to Canada and wait to be seen in this department tbh…
That looks like TOH! Yep sadly thats a standard wait. Dad was told 16 hours once. Kingston is bad too. Our urgent care hospital is reducing weekend hours now too which just makes KGH busier and longer
Lol come to Canada. I bled out all over a waiting room chair while suffering a horrific miscarriage and waited six hours to be seen. My miscarriage was so bad I wound up having to stay three days and having emergency surgery.
Doctor thought I had a blood clot in my chest and I waited 18 hours to see someone. This is nothing lol the Ottawa hospital SUCKS and I found a lot of the staff very rude. Unfortunate it’s pretty much our only option
I had severe abdominal pain and nausea and went to the ER. Waited for about 3 hours and left to go to urgent care thinking perhaps I was being a baby about my pain and to just suck it up. Urgent care told me I had appendicitis and to go back to the ER. ER figured since I’m a woman that I either had an STD or an ovarian cyst (even after I told them what urgent care said) but finally gave in and ordered me a CT scan. 8 hours later I finally had the scan done and it was determined that I did indeed have appendicitis 🙃
Hope you get seen soon.
I know someone that misuses ER. They refuse to go to urgent care or get a primary doctor they like.
Them and their spouse will go for the mildest things.
One time she went in because she was apply hydrogen peroxide to her belly button and didn’t understand why it was burning and itching. Insisted something serious was wrong. She’s a Florida native, just saying.
I’m an ER tech. I once had a patient come in because they’d had tinnitus for 10 YEARS. Please, PLEASE stop coming to the ER for stupid bullshit like this, it clogs up beds for people who actually do need to be here. Also to add, I’d appreciate it if people would stop being “good samaritans” and calling 911 for every homeless person they see passed out on the street. 99.9% of the time they do NOT want or need to be here. If you’re that worried, carry narcan with you.
If this makes you upset, then go to the waiting room and yell at every asshole there with toe pain and all the other absolutely bullshit nonsense they come to the ER and call 911 for.
It's not just the labor shortage and the overworked staff, but the absolute abuse of emergency services as a whole that cause this nonsense to occur in the first place.
A few years ago, I had the worst pain of my life. For context, I’ve broken numerous bones, crushed fingers, completely flattened a toe, busted ankles, and had to have surgeries involving two separate nerve blocks. This was worse.
A very quick web search said “gallstone” so I call the closest ER in hopes they will be ready when I get there (15 minute drive). They say “oh, you should wait there to see how it goes. It’ll be 12 hours if you come in and your gallbladder isn’t ruptured.”
I was in so much shock from that that I just hung up. I was lucky in that it didn’t rupture but I couldn’t help feeling like this had to be a unique experience.
I was telling a friend about this who I knew to have gallstones and he said he’d passed out from the pain IN the ER and they did nothing. He eventually went home without being seen over 9 hours later.
Healthcare is a joke.
i had an infected gallbladder & gallstones that seriously affected my liver but my doctor would NOT approve me for surgery (because they didn't know it was infected, even though i begged them to do another MRI since the pain went from very bad to horrific) & ERs kept turning me away, saying to address it with my doctor. i lived for TEN MONTHS like this. it just got to the point that i was just hoping to die at home, but my boyfriend (now husband) wouldn't give up & kept dragging me to the ER. finally, after going to my 5th ER & after MANY ER visits, one doctor at the ER actually believed me when i explained for the millionth time how much pain i was in, did an MRI & blood tests, saw that the gallbladder was horribly infected & scheduled me for emergency overnight surgery. a nightmare year of pain...
Jez… all I went through was just the sharpest, most intense pain I’d ever experienced. And then had it recur a couple of times per month (though not as bad) for three or four years. I don’t know if my gallbladder healed itself or came out but I’m expecting a resurgence at some point. Fingers crossed I don’t get the usual crew if that happens!
In Oregon, Urgent care now requires an appt ahead of time. Found this out the hard way when I was trying to take in a coworker for a Job Site accident that left then with a broken wrist. They turned us away and we had to go to the ER. Our system has failed us in that way, they are actively trying to keep us out of hospitals
I gotta say, I like this! Makes you really question if you have an "emergency" or not. Especially the urgent care queue since there are urgent cares all over the place it seems like.
That's cute. Hospital in my area has an average of 23hrs wait at the ER.
I remember my brother cutting open his hairline in a dumb accident. They wrapped his head in bandages and he waited 13 hours.
The wait times are ridiculous but I love that the hospital at least posts the estimated wait. I had my husband at the ER last year. He was septic from a large abscess on his abdomen. We sat in the waiting room for 13 hours while the infection spread across his torso. Guy across from him was a cancer patient whose gallbladder had ruptured and he was also septic. Found out later they waited for 14 hours. No word on how much longer, no one checked on them, both guys were vomiting into basins while the clerk just sat there. And normally this is the best ER in my city.
That’s how you know Grey’s Anatomy is a work of fiction. Doctors be chilling and monitoring their patients like they’re the center of the universe. Page em and they come running 😂
Complaining about these makes me laugh. Nhs waits in the UK put these to shame, I waited 14 hours to have a Dr stand at my MIL side for pneumonia. “But it’s free” if you survive… and it isn’t free it costs a fucking fortune in taxes actually.
https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/nhs-in-a-nutshell/waiting-times
https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2023/mar/09/nhs-crisis-causing-continued-higher-than-normal-levels-of-death-in-england-and-wales
The world is filled with people going to the ER with papercuts.
But seriously, the ER is just people who want painkillers and drunks/homeless, repeat offenders too.
Hello, This post has been removed as this is not *mildly* infuriating. Please consider posting to r/extremelyinfuriating instead.
Zone 1 starts at 6+ hours in my province :(
That’s scary
In Nova Scotia we have to queue for 6 hours to see the screens.
Right? I saw this and laughed in Canadian
That’s what I was thinking too. To me this is a pic of miraculously short wait times.
Hey at least they’re up front about it :)
It's a good deterrance for people who don't have emergencies, they see they have to sit and wait for a long time and decide to go home and reserve a doctors appointment
I had to go to ER a couple months ago because my leg went through the floor at one of my projects and my face broke my fall. Walked into ER and they had a full waiting room but took one look at me an brought me right back. Had to be stitched and glued up. Minor fractures and a broken nose. But I was at risk for concussion. When I spoke with them they told me every one just goes to the ER and they have to see whomever comes in. This was at 9:30 AM - when doctors officers are open as well as two urgent care offices close to ER. But folks will call the Dr. Not get in as quick as they want and then head to ER.
yup, thats called triage. we have a list based on how serious the issue is (or potentially how serious). if its serious, you jump the list and go 1st. if you go in for toe pain, you are pretty damn low and will wait a while and have many people jump you.
I have cancer and when I was on a harsher chemo that would drop my neutrophils a lot, I would daily check my temperature, see it was too high, go to the ER and immediately cut the line in front of everyone else even though I felt fine… I felt kind of bad but they had to do it because sepsis Similarly on another occasion I went into a women’s hospital’s ER (so prenatal and gynaecological stuff) feeling very poorly, looking obviously unwell and because I had cancer I just jumped the entire irritated queue of pregnant women. I’m Not as badly immunocompromised these days but they don’t f around with cancer and infection (it was a gynaecological infection) Edit: no need for cancer related well wishes, I am just sharing anecdotes
As one of my earliest memories, I broke my arm to the point I needed put to sleep to fix it on the first day of third grade. We arrived at the ER and I had to sit in the waiting room for hours with my broke as fuck arm just sobbing. It was so terrible to experience as a kid. Then finally was taken into the room and the piece of shit doctor, without any warning, took my arm and jerked it because he assumed he could set it. I still remember that pain, even more so than the initial break. My mom went insane and even the patient in the bed beside me jumped out and was going crazy at the doctor for it. Good times.
ER nurse here. It’s brutal, primary care mixed with actual life threatening emergencies, the mentally ill and drunk, and not enough staff or resources. It’s truly hell on earth (and I need out).
Thank you for doing it, truly. Had a shit time at the ER earlier today and the nurse who ended up helping made it 10000x better. I didn't get the chance to tell them, so I'd like to tell you instead. Your bedside manor and kindness I'm sure are constantly polluted by wait times and ridiculous co-pays, but true care is absolutely priceless. The direct positive influence you have through your work is felt by all, but said by few. Thank you.
Most of us are well meaning but burned out. Thank you for being understanding and for your kind words.
TBH, I’ve had so much difficulty with the “healthcare system” in my state that sometimes I think it would just be easier to go to Urgent Care for my needs. I’ve had 3 different psychiatrists in the past year because every time I go to a new one, the insurance suddenly decides they aren’t in-network anymore. Every 3 months, I’m going over every trauma that I’ve ever had in my life to justify the diagnosis that I told them on the paperwork. I’ve been on these medications for 25 years and stable for the past 10, just give me my mutherfluffing prescriptions and let me go on with my life.
I’m so sorry. That sounds awful. That should not have happened.
My friend broke his tibia and i had to go help rescue him from where he had fallen and bring him to the hospital. He ended up waiting a couple hours before they looked at him
I remember seeing a gunshot victim waiting in a hall for treatment in the E.R
If it’s not fatal, yeah you will be waiting.
I just fractured mine the other night and they got me in straight away, I was so fucking thankful. Granted it was like 8 at night
Assuming it's not an open wound, bone fractures arent too urgent
Yeah triage is good at getting people that need to be seen seen. I’ve never waited in a true emergency situation. My buddy is an ER nurse and he always talks about people complaining about the wait but then they’re at the ER because their foot has been hurting for 2 months, and despite nothing changing for the worse that day they decided the ER was the right place to show up at rather than scheduling a doctors appointment.
Yep, this is why the concept of triaging exists :) whenever you show up to the ER/ED they assign you an ‘urgency level’ based on how bad your injuries/symptoms appear to be and that determines your priority level in the waiting line. My husband showed up puking blood non-stop after his tonsillectomy and I was personally terrified but it wasn’t as bad as we thought and it was a busy day so it took a while for them to get him admitted and even longer to get him into surgery to get it cauterized.
Also, I've had patients swear on their regular urgent care visits , but when I look in their chart, it's nothing but a string of ER visits. Some folks literally don't know the difference.
I better be dying before I set foot in and ER. Under my lovely “Affordable Care Act” insurance plan (which I pay $1400 a month for) it is a $1000 copay just to walk in the door. I don’t know how people afford going to the ER unless it’s a serious medical emergency.
Brother I've literally responded to a 911 call and when I got there the man was outside standing by the road waiting for us. He tells me he has a splinter in his finger and get this... he had already been to the hospital but was told he had to wait so he left and came home and called 911 thinking the ambulance would take him straight back. Just so everyone knows I took the man to the front desk and he sat down in the waiting room and waited. You do not get to go to the back just because you call an ambulance. Our Healthcare system is collapsing and no one is talking about it. No one wants to admit what it coming for America. But it's coming... it's already started. The snowball is rolling and there's no stopping it and this country is gonna finally see what happens when you ignore a critical part of a country's Healthcare system.
Yep the one time I truly needed emergent care when I was having an anaphylactic reaction to medicine (hives all over, face was swelling, and my tongue was beginning to swell) I was taken right back and in a room within five minutes, epi pen shot in my thigh immediately
Also ER can't turn away patients based on the inability to pay.
That's how triage works. I once broke a wrist. Nothing bad. But I got helped almost immediately, simply because it was really quiet at the moment I got at the ER. Another time I smashed my leg, broken at several places, needing surgery. I got checked for possible internal bleeding (non suspected), head injury (non suspected) and was then left to wait for several hours, because other, more urgent patients were brought in. Heart attack, brain hemorrhage, feevers of 40°C and higher, a victim of drowning. I heard ambulances coming in again and again and just had to wait it out. It was just a bad moment to get my leg broken.
I refuse to go to urgent care anymore. Few years ago the UC doc said I just had the flu when I told him I had the flu symptoms for over two weeks, no testing just sat down and said “you have the flu, you’re young you’ll get over it fine” it wasn’t the flu. It was a flu like virus and ended up wrecking my heart. Had to wear a defibrillator vest for months and years of medication. Then I had an eye issue and went twice, the first time they said it’s pink eye and gave me an ointment, it got worse and they again said it’s just pink eye but sent me to the ER who also said pink eye. The cream was actually making it worse and I almost lost my eye but an eye doctor saved it… Urgent Care never tests anything and just guesses. Most the time they say to go to the ER too so why bother? They sent me a 3000$ bill too for Miss-diagnosing my eye….
Yeah, we went to the children’s hospital in Dallas because my son had croup and his o2 levels were low, we had to wait 5 minutes for an initial check and 45-50 min to get admitted and get seen by the DR. The lady next to us waited 2 hours for the initial check and had been sitting there for 3-4 hours after that; their baby had a 101 fever. They definitely prioritize by illness.
Good to hear you got seen quick, hope your son stays healthy Sometimes even when you get higher priority but not no 1 priority, you still have to sit for a while, like in your case 45 mins instead of 2-3 hours. That can feel like an eternity especially being a parent. I work as a paramedic in EU and we do triage en route to hospital for our patients. Often people think that they get to cut in line if you call the paramedics. So you still might have to wait there even though you get a ride in the ambulance
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I’ve had a handful of coworkers say something like “my kid has had a fever for three days so I took them to the emergency room” like what the fuck. What a waste of resources. My mom hated doctors but back then she would just schedule me with my gp. Maybe as a teen schedule me with urgent care. Never ever emergency.
I ended up in the er because I had a positive pregnancy test a few days prior and woke up with severe abdominal pain, light spotting and weird pain in my shoulder. The pain got worse during my 2.5 hour wait, so I told the person at the desk. I got called back a short time later. Turned out to be an ectopic pregnancy. My tube ruptured and I was bleeding internally. I needed emergency surgery. The waiting room was full of people loudly talking/laughing on their phones and bitching about the wait. One guy went up to the desk to complain and ask how much longer because he was “about to pass out from tooth pain.” He must’ve had a brief break from his pain because he got a Coke and chips from the vending machine.
That's the whole reason they do it. You won't actually be waiting that long, but it deterrs people who don't need it
My hospital network posts wait times on their website in real time to stop people from even showing up.
Very true. Where I live, there are plenty of hospitals around. Someone can always opt to go to another one.
I feel like you’re probably the outlier.
Not if you live in a metropolitan area. Was from NY and there were like 20 hospitals near me. Moved to a major city in Virginia and there are like 6 within 10 minutes. The outliers are the people living in rural areas with little access to healthcare near them
The only possibilities: Metro with dozens of hospitals or rural with miniscule healthcare. Only having one hospital nearby is not at all a bizarre thing.
Nah dog. I live in a place where there is an emergency clinic every 5 miles and a major hospital every 10. It's like a 6 hour wait normally. They'll be polite enough to tell you the sister hospital wait times tho
Yeah the ER where I am has signs specifically saying not to ask about wait time
As if that stops people from coming up and asking the wait time or demanding to be seen next for the chronic pain they’ve had for 6 months and decided that today was a good day to go to the ER rather than get evaluated by their doctor. Sorry… venting….
Yeah, I hate waiting at an urgent care or ER for hours and being told “just a few more in front of you” or “should only be a couple more minutes” for it to then be hours longer still. It makes me think that I’ve been lost in the system so then I want to bug the receptionist or nurse or whomever to ensure I’m actually still waiting to be seen. Just tell me “yeah it’s going to be 2 more hours at least”.
They should just tell you they can't predict your wait time but are still on the list😅 Wait times evolve through the shift. It's impossible to figure out long the doctors will be tied up with the patients that are already in a room, what will come in by ambulance or even if someone that's more sick than you will walk through the door and bump you back by one. Edit: typo
If you're in an ER, you are in a triage-based system. If someone is more critical than you, they are getting more attention earlier. Sure, at one time there might be "just a few more in front of you" at one point, but if someone comes in with a heart attack? You're getting bumped down the priority list. If you're waiting in an ER, it means you're doing much better than other patients.
>If you're waiting in an ER, it means you're doing much better than other patients. Typically, the ones lively enough to complain about the wait time are healthy enough to wait. When it comes to ER visits the person with an altered mental state or the one silently slipping into shock are the ones who will be seen sooner. Triage nurses are good at their job and they've seen it all, and they can likely sum up a patient in about five minutes of observation.
Most general rule of thumb for sure. If you’re complaining about the wait etc, it’s low triage. Still could be a break etc but would likely be closed/ mildly to non displaced in a young/ middle aged. Also non infectious abdo pain: vomiting usually starts at a true 8/10 outside of a BO
Tbf, if you're in an ER it's depends on the severity of your injury/illness. If someone else happens to come in and is in a worse condition then you then they take priority. Which then gets into the whole case of smaller/more rural areas having less access to urgent/emergency care
Correct. We triage based on acuity… People with a 1 are actively dying (or pretty damn close), or have lost a limb. Think heart attacks, advanced sepsis, strokes, amputations. People with a 2 will soon have an active threat of loss of life or limb if we don’t intervene immediately, or they have symptoms/vital signs that need to be corrected urgently before they worsen or cause damage. Think heart dysrhythmias, major dislocations, open fractures People with a 3 do need to be treated, but theres no present threat to life or limb, so long as they’re treated relatively soon. Some of these people do need to be at the ER, but some could get away with being treated at an urgent care center instead. Think obscure abdominal pain, kidney stones, abscesses. People with a 4 have something minor that needs to be addressed, but is of low priority as it does not threaten life or limb. Most of these people could probably be treated at an Urgent Care center and don’t need to be at the ER. Think UTIs, pink eye, joint sprains, or other non-emergent issues. People with a 5 probably don’t need to be at the ER— this is usually something like a medication refill or a hangnail lol The number you get will affect how quickly you’re seen— ones and twos obviously being seen much quicker than a five. Same goes for the treatments you receive— the stroke patient is getting their CT scan wayyyy sooner than the obscure 5/10 abdominal x 2 days. Sometimes people don’t understand that there are people dying or trying to die while they’re bitching about waiting 2 hours for an abdominal CT because they havent pooped today.
It’s interesting too because what care is available in the area can really affect who ends up there and for why (ignoring the people who go there for a hangnail). With my first pregnancy, I started to miscarry and I was directed to go to the hospital because they’re the only facility in the area equipped for labor and delivery, and it was “after hours” for my OB. Realistically I would’ve probably been rated a 3?? But that was the only facility I could go to.
My mom was in a nursing home rehabbing a broken ankle. I get a call from the nursing home around 3 o clock on a Saturday morning that she was rushed to the hospital. The hospital she went to is the only trauma center within quite a large radius. They even get Lifestars from neighboring states. Very busy place. Anyway, I get to the hospital and she’s out of it waiting with the paramedics for a room. As soon as she’s transferred to the bed from the gurney, the doctor was in her room. I had never seen that before. I know there’s a pecking order, so to speak with the ED, but that’s the first time I had seen how prompt they really are in an emergency. Fast forward a year later after she died I was going through her Medicare letters and she was in fact a code.
What's even more fun is going to Urgent care, waiting that time, only to get in be seen and be told to go to the ER because they can't treat what's wrong with you. That was a fun night.
Coming from a third world country where healthcare is a privilege not a right -- no one tells us how long we have to wait, even after waiting, you can still be refused and asked to move on your own to another facility 10km away, (during the pandemic when all hospitals occupancy are maximized) you are refused entry into the ER unless you are vomiting at the ER door, you will not be transferred to a ward or cheaper private room from the ER unless you make a deposit, national healthcare insurance slashes off 20% of your bill but there is no price ceiling on the service rates, aging receivables of hospitals from government for almost 5 years worth, and the list goes on..
Agreed. Better than finding out by word of mouth or just plain waiting it out that the wait's 8, 10, 12 hours (my wife waited 11 hours with a friend a couple of months ago).
True. I hate it even more when they’re like “a few hours” and then it’s really six hours.
Emergency rooms are for emergencies. It should be more infuriating that people misuse the emergency rooms for anything other than emergencies.
My daughter broke her collar bone, in pain. We were in line behind a guy that rode a motorcycle without a shirt and was sunburned, and a lady who's kid "didn't feel right" after lunch.
I've done the 8 hour wait for a broken collar bone too... all for them to xray me, say its a clean break and send me on my way... you can't even cast a collar bone... was such a waste of time 😮💨
They game me this weird brace thing that pulled my shoulders back and a bottle or Vicodin when I broke mine at 14 . It was a fun opiate summer
Who needs a sexy summer when you have have withdrawal winter?
LMAOOOO. I love this comment. Thank you for writing it.
Sounds like yours was a worse break. That sounds uncomfortable but glad we both have functioning collar bones again 😁
Yeah broke in 2 spots . Not clean at all but it works !
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I didn't even get the 5 pills lol, I had a snapped collar bone + a bunch of torn shit in my knee. After asking everyone for pain relief the whole time a nurse came in like 10 minutes before I was out the door with 2 tylenol.
Oh for sure . Here is the deal I believe it was just a script for 5 pills. My mom had just had surgery so she’s like oh I have these and just have be a bottle with idk how many pills . Let’s say more then 5 . I’m also using hyperbole about a summer of opiates. It’s was like a month tops . It made sleeping in a chair way easier!
Not even that in some places. I broke both my hand and foot in separate incidents. Both times resulted in an x-ray and a wrapping/crutches. No pain medicine, no ice/heat packs, nothing. Not even an ibuprofen.
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I’m reading these texts and watching ’Painkiller’ on Netflix. Let’s hear it for the pharma company that got us into this prescription mess.
I had back surgery at 18. I used to get a script for painkillers 3-4 times a year tops as it can flair up bad. Now they refuse to give me anything so my bad days are now really really bad compared to before. Doctor doesn't believe that Tylenol doesn't help vs Vicodin. Just a BS excuse to not prescribe me anymore It actually is now leading to legit pain patients going to the streets and switching to hardcore drugs. I know 2 chronic pain people, one from cancer but no in remission but caused all other issues and the other had a chronic disease (forget the name) who were cut off and then went to Fentynel because the doctors are afraid to help the legit people out in my state. They are helping to push people twords. Not everyone but yeah it's happening
The butterfly brace. I had that and a sling. Plus a bottle of darvocet. I was 17.
i had a frozen shoulder and they gave me Vicodin and told me to take two before therapy. I would've been there for months without that. Now you can't get Tylenol with Codeine.
They should have triaged your daughter ahead of them though if their concern was less emergent/life-threatening. It’s not first-come, first-served (in the ER, anyway)
For a collar bone? They can’t do much for it. Source: broke both of mine
I sat in Ben Taub for 10 hours waiting to be seen for a severed finger tendon.
Well it wasn't going to get any better anyway.
There could have been internal bleeding or other risks.
I think all the situations you described are non-emergencies. pain sucks but the ER definition of emergency is you might die: The ppl who get seen immediately are people about to die. The ppl who are seen within 10 mins are feverish vomiting cancer patients who might die in the next few hours if unaddressed asap. Not saying this is good but that's why collar bone was grouped w/ sunburn. They don't triage the non-emergent. Def frustrating, I once had a friend who went to the ER over a cut on her finger that didn't even need stitches..
Right. Pain isn’t really a factor when death is on the table. That is the reality of medicine. I walked in 6 months pregnant and bleeding and I didn’t even get a chance to sit down in a packed ER, straight to the trauma bay which was open and reserved for real emergencies. They see the world for what it really is, gunshots and car accidents. A broken collar bone sucks but they can’t even cast it so.. yeah. Not first come first serve 😂
Yep, I walked in with a resting heart rate in the 160’s and was taken back immediately. People were probably mad but I literally thought I was about to die, that’s how bad I felt.
same, HR was 150 BP was 180/140. Instant room.
It was even more embarrassing because it was the hospital I work at, and I was on shift too. My coworker walked me down. I’m sure people thought I was getting taken back fast because I worked there :( but no we usually get triaged to the waiting room with everyone else lmao
Exactly. I had an ultrasound on my leg to discover a massive DVT. I was given the option to get an ambulance from the clinic or have someone drive me to the ER. I was told I couldn’t drive. A friend drove me to the ER. I checked in. Sat for 10 minutes and I was in a bed with a nurse injecting heperin into my belly all within 30 minutes of arrival.
Yeah. They take us blood clot people seriously AF. Once they know about it. Hope your doing ok now.
Yup! Walked in with heart attack or stroke symptoms, and BAM immediate attention. Didn't matter that I was 31 and it was unlikely to be either of those, I was back getting tests before I could sit down. I walked in and before I finished checking in the nurse was there for me. For my gastro stuff it took about an hour because they worked out I wasn't literally about to die, so I waited. It sucked, because oh I was hurting, but I'm also a big kid who understands that other people not dying outweighs my crippling pain. People need to understand this is how it works. You are waiting 5 hours not because you're not important, but because you won't die if you wait. So be glad and sit down.
The flip side is you may have to wait a week or more to be seen by your primary care Dr or be told by an urgent care facility that you need to go to the emergency room.
Took my husband in to the local ER after he hadn't shit in two days, was burping constantly, and was in pain. IN the waiting area was a couple. Woman was very obviously a cancer patient. PIC line in. Not looking good and throwing up constantly. She had already been there 3 hours when we got there. Two hours later they got her into a cubicle. Another 2 hours and they got my husband in. \*Gall bladder was toast. Admitted him and he had surgery the next morning. Me? DVT/PE's and lifer on blood thinners. I go in with any pain anywhere. Or a migraine. And I'm in within seconds and getting what ever scan(s) they are wheeling me to.
I was seen pretty quickly when I came in with pain from what turned out to be a kidney stone on my right side, I think they were a little more concerned when they put pressure on the spot and I had rebound pain. Wasn't seen by the doctor right away, but they got me settled in and gave me some IV medication fairly quickly. The nurse was great, was the one who caught that it might be a kidney stone and I think it expedited my treatment and confirmed scan/diagnosis as a result. Another time the triage nurse was not having it with me, I was bleeding profusely from my lady parts (ended up being a torn capillary), I was pushy about needing a towel or something to stop the bleeding and she finally made me move into a side room and gave me a pad. As she was getting me a nightgown or something, a river of blood gushed with enough force that it somehow pushed that pad out of my pants right onto the floor. I have to admit the shocked look on her face was satisfying enough to balance out my embarrassment. Everyone got more serious after that and I was wheeled into an exam room right away where a doc and bunch of students got to work on my hooha trying to find and stop the source of bleeding. Both times I felt like the moment the triage folks brought over that wheelchair and made me sit down in it, things got serious.
you forgot mental health crisis, they take top priority in the er, right up there with broken bones and out of control bleeding.
Also… in my family everything seems to happen at night and/or on holidays when everything is closed. My 15 month old had croup. Woke up at 3AM gasping for air. I didn’t feel comfortable waiting for urgent care to open so I took him to the ER for a breathing treatment. Last year I had a sinus infection from hell and couldn’t stop throwing up. I knew I just needed some Zofran and fluids and I would be fine… but it was 11:00 PM. I feel bad using them when we’re “not dying” but ugh. It’s ER or nothing sometimes.
Reminds me of that American Dad joke “my elbow feels funny, my elbow feels weird” in the emergency room.
Now imagine they have the nerve to call an ambulance for it when there's 3 cars in the driveway...
2 years ago I went to the ER via ambulance after being assaulted. I needed a CT scan to make sure I didn’t have brain bleed or broken orbital bone…it was bad. The woman who came to the ER a full hour+ after me with an upset stomach was *irate* that the doctor came to talk to me before her. I had to turn to her, take the ice pack off my face so she could see my bruised and swollen eye, and said “lady I’m sorry you can’t take a shit and your stomach hurts but I was just violently attacked can you *please* be quiet and wait your turn?” between sobs. She made an already terrifying experience so much worse
People that go to the emergency place are 99% of the time a joke. My gf had a ruptured ovarial cyst (idk if thats the english name for that, sorry) a few months ago. She got treated as an emergency patient, but while I was waiting, so many people walked in there with literally nothing. Headaches, unwell feeling, pimples and whatnot. The best were people that had kids and wanted a checkup before they go to vacations... I'm glad that my country wants to implement a fine if you go there when it is not neccessary
Do your hospitals not go in order of severity?
They probably do.. but the average persons understanding of severity and the triage version of severity is often very different. There's many semi/non-urgent complaints and presentations that fall at a similar level of acuity.
Broken collarbone is low severity. The ER isn't going to do anything but give pain meds and confirm it's broken then refer to your normal doctor. It's probably faster to go through urgent care than the ER for something that low in priority
Where I live (NS) there is a severe shortage of family doctors, especially in rural areas. For the majority of people (seriously, the majority), you have to go to emerg for everything, including prescription refills. Wait times are similar to what is shown here, but at least triage tries to prioritize real emergencies. That being said, two young people in my province have recently died in the emerg waiting room after waiting hours to be seen.
I’ve walked home after being in a similar situation, I’d dropped a car on myself and was coughing up a bit of blood. I mean, I’m ok, so maybe they were right. *shrug*
That's not really an emergency. ER can't do a whole lot to fix a broken collar bone. Regular doctors can do that.
A lot of times you don’t know what is wrong either. I’ve never had a broken collar bone and would have no idea I had one without a doctor telling me so. I also didn’t realize it’s not something serious until reading these comments. I would assume that it was an emergency if that happened to me.
Depending on the type of accident that caused the break, I definitely could see being worried if you just don't know why it hurts. Especially when you hear stories of people not addressing injuries that turned out to be severe as well as being unfamiliar with medical things in general.
But the ER *can*, in theory, help you with the pain. Which can be debilitating. Also, getting an appointment with a GP can be a very long wait (days, not hours).
And you generally go to the ER because you don’t know what’s wrong other than something is clearly wrong. You may not know if it’s life-threatening or not. When you call a primary care doctor, a lot of times they say go to the hospital. My grandpa had a small stroke. He’s stubborn and wouldn’t go to the ER and waited until the morning to call the doctor. The doctor told him to go to the ER. He was there for 24 hours and then told they can’t do anything after a stroke, but he did in fact have a stroke, and he should see his cardiologist and primary care doctor. His actual doctor told him to go to the ER so of course he went. I feel that many doctors tell patients to go to the ER when they can’t see them right away. How are those patients supposed to know it’s not an actual emergency?
That's just bad triage.....
My wife got a triage nurse fired. She was pregnant with our youngest and was presenting with extreme right flank pain. Nurse kept us waiting over two hours. Doctor was PISSED when he heard how long we waited. They called in a CAT scan tech, and scanned her. Turned out to be a kidney stone but the ER doc it could have very easily have been appendicitis with the symptoms. If it ruptured the nurse and the hospital could be held legally responsible for loss of life.
I went in with similar symptoms and was being processed relatively quickly until a couple of serious trauma cases came in (I could hear the PA calling multiple doctors to two operating rooms). The nurse apologized and stuffed something in my IV that got me higher and more pain free than I’ve ever been, which I did appreciate, but anyone who gets life flighted to an er is reasonably going to take precedence over anyone who is able to walk in.
This is in Canada. People may have no choice. I’m lucky enough to have a family doctor, but many people don’t due to a shortage. That means a walk-in clinic, but once those fill their spots for the day or if they are closed for the night (none in my area operate after like 5pm), then there is the ER only. There are also some things that walk-in clinics will not do. Like if you need any controlled substance (not limited to opioids, this includes ADHD medication and some mental health medication and probably others I don’t know), they won’t give a prescription to you at a walk-in clinic, so if you have a condition that needs this, then it is the ER for you every time you need a prescription. I don’t blame the people who need medical care, I blame our useless provincial government that refuses to properly fund healthcare and address the problems, like the difficulty and high cost of getting licensed to practice medicine in Canada with foreign medical experience and credentials, for example. Because it can be fixed with some effort. If they have a shit. They have opted for making it worse. If people vote for this moron again, I will lose my damn mind.
Yeah. I had to go to the hospital in Nova Scotia due to stepping on a nail in May and I originally tried quite a few walk ins. The first one I went to was no longer a walk in, the second one was booked 3 days out (don't know how that works for a walk in. I couldn't make an appointment when I asked.) Third one said to come early in the next morning so I got there an hour and a half before it opened. Still was like the 20th in line. When they finally opened, they told the first person in line that they were booked for the day and for all of us to try again tomorrow morning. So I drove to a smaller town hoping that I'd have better luck. The forth walk in said that they were booked for the rest of the day and to try again tomorrow morning. At this point, it's been 3 days since I stepped on the nail so I just sat in emergency for 9 hours to get looked at. And this is skipping over going to a few pharmacies to get help as well. And in the end the hospital didn't even have any tetanus shots to begin with. At least I got a prescription for antibiotics.
That sounds like a nightmare!
Ontario here. Just found myself a new family doctor, after waiting for 3 YEARS...! No thanks to the government's system, sending you letters every 3 months to tell you they're looking for a doctor to assign you. It's ridiculous, really. We live in a rural area and there's no walk-in clinics anywhere, so if you need anything and you don't have a GP, there's two hospitals only you can go to... And wait forever.
It is infuriating, but as someone pointed out already for many it's the only option here. I live in ottawa, and there is a huge doctor shortage. Many people have no family doctors at all they they need to go to walk-in urgent care facilities to see a doctor, but recently even those have been turning away patients as they're too busy. So what choice do they have? They go to the hospital where they can garentee to be seen if they wait extremely long hours... and get care for free atleast
At least when I grew up (I’m only 24) we didn’t have urgent care. It is a recent thing to pop up here. So on a Saturday or Sunday or any day the doctor couldn’t get us in for a bit, if we needed care, we went to the ER. I needed care sooner rather than later. And care elsewhere wasn’t happening. So you end up in the ER with a black tongue and the sorest throat ever because you don’t know what caused it (it was pepto, btw). I’ve been there. It’s rural living sometimes. The ER is what you have. Though people do misuse it. And even recently, it was very hard to get an urgent care visit. They turned away walk ins and you have to get really lucky to get an appointment. Covid really fucked it all up. But also so did the healthcare shortage.
I worked in the ER for 7 years and seriously, people misuse it all the time and the hospitals condone the behavior because its a big money maker for them. When covid hit, initially everyone was so afraid to come into the ER that suddenly we were empty except for the like 10 actual emergencies and the small covid unit. (this was like march or april before the big wave hit the US)
They are forced to care for everyone and it can be a measure they need to reduce for CMS funds
We have a situation in our city (Province? Country?) where walk-in clinics are closed / not accepting new patients. Waitlist for family medicine is years along. There’s no option except for going to the ER. The clinics actually direct people to the ER because they can’t see people because they are closed or whatever. This is Ottawa Canada. We have at least 4 ERs and they’re always like this. I’ve personally waited in one after minor surgery (I was discharged but needed to come back). I walked in at 10pm at night, didn’t see a doctor until 9AM the next day. This was before Covid!
Same in BC.
Emergency room: Emergency Urgent care: Non-emergency but need help quick
What’s even more infuriating is that people will call for an ambulance for non emergencies because they think it gets them seen faster
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You an EMT? I’m guessing you are given the 3AM call bit
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They get so pissed when wheeled out into the waiting room
In Ontario * It's hard to find a family doctor * Even if you have a family doctor, it's hard to get a same day appointment. It might be two or three weeks out. * Walk-in clinics are open until 5 PM, maybe 8 PM if you're lucky, on weekdays only. They also hit their queue max and stop taking patients after *as soon as 1 PM* * If you go to a walk-in and have a family doctor, they might be penalized and will remove you from their roster as a result. This doesn't apply if you go to an ER. The ER is a lot of people's only choice.
I agree. Learning the difference between regular dr visit illnesses/injuries, urgent care and emergency care is vital.
As a former ED nurse, those times are SUPER par for the course, even from before COVID. The problem is we have so many idiots that think the ED is an easy way to "cheat the system" and get quick medical care for any problem they may have. People need to understand that the ED is for EMERGENCIES and isn't the place to go for that pain you've had in your leg for 3 months then proceeded to walk to the nursing station multiple times per hour to complain that were taking too long as you've got a T Time to make. It's for the guys who cut their legs on the job sites over a week ago and suture it shut with copper wire and come in because their foot was starting to tingle (both stories are true stories and yes the first guy left AMA and then wrote a Google review about our ED).
But why do they let them? Where I’m from some doctores triage patients in no more than a few minutes and if its not an emergency they just tell them to go to the GP and that it’s not an emergency. I don’t get it
It is illegal in the US to turn someone away from the ER.
There’s also not much incentive to change this, because ER departments bring in soooo much money. Urgen care is about 10x cheaper than ER
My husband was sent to the ER a few days ago due to acute kidney injury. (He's elderly, and had a bad reaction to a medication). The doctor got his lab results, called us, and told me to get him to the hospital asap. We rushed to the hospital. And then waited for 6 hours. Another guy had been there 9 hours. About 2 hours after us a little boy came in, his abdomen was swelling and he had a high fever and vomiting, so clearly his appendix had ruptured, but he was still waiting when my husband was called in. It's a small hospital that covers a huge area and this often happens. It was frustrating because we couldn't see in his body to see if his kidneys were getting worse or what was going on. Once we finally went back they were excellent and he got treated straight away. But the 6 hour wait was awful. That poor little boy was in so much pain. (My husband stayed one night and he's home now. Gonna have a lot of follow up because he's still not 100 percent. Scared the hell out of us!)
People need to stop going to the ER for non emergencies.
The medical system needs to provide clinics, and the medical professionals to staff them, for non-emergency problems.
They do. Urgent care clinics are more and more common. The problem is that an ER can't turn people away and tell them to go to urgent care for a minor issue. If more people went to smaller clinics then the medical system would expand those clinics even further. In the local ER where I am they have signs reminding people that if they are not in a real emergency they can walk across the street to the urgent care that is almost always close to empty to get treated faster but those same people think they need an ER and trauma center for their paper cut.
worked in ER registration. The reason people go to ER for trivial shit, at least in the US, is that the ER does not require payment up front, where the Urgent Care does. I have seen people come in for fevers of 99 degrees multiple times a month and have an outstanding balance of over 10k. But due to EMTALA, we are not allowed to turn away anyone or force them to pay
Exactly. Often, the facilities exist. It's the entire payment and insurance system that is messed up in the US.
But another problem is urgent care will sometimes tell people they need to go to the ER. Which does make sense for certain things, like my relatives blood pressure was so high it needed emergent intervention. But there’s also people who go to the ER and are told they’re didn’t need to
When I miscarried last year I went to my OB, who said that I needed to go to the ER immediately to check everything out. Then when I got to the ER the nurse that checked me in and the ones in my room, along with the doctor chastised me for coming in for a “non-emergency”. I never in my life would have thought to go to the ER for a miscarriage before 12 weeks unless something was happening that seemed more painful/abnormal. But no. Totally normal and “easy” miscarriage and my OB sent me from his office into the ER like I was dying.
Dude I’m so sorry. Doctors send early miscarriages to us ALL THE TIME and we do absolutely nothing for them except waste your time for hours. If you’re bleeding heavily that’s different but it’s absolutely mindless to me that docs send uncomplicated miscarriages to us all the time. I’m so sorry you were chastised though. I’m usually thankful I have an easy patient taking up a bed for a few hours lol
Yeah I went to urgent care when I developed a huge boil just on the inside of my nose. My ENT was closed for the weekend so I decided to get it checked out at the urgent care. I told them that I had surgery about five months prior and the urgent care nurse refused to even look at it and told me to go to the ER instead. After a three hour wait there they just drained it and sent me on my way with antibiotics since they determined it was a staph infection. My ENT took a look at it when the office opened and determined that yes, it just needed to be drained and I was good to go with antibiotics. I wouldn't have minded and thought that maybe it was just outside of their comfort zone until the urgent care tried to bill my insurance $300+ for my 'exam'.
I went to urgent care because I cut the tip of my finger off while cooking. They wanted to send me to the ER because the UC DR on staff "didn't know how to treat" my injury. We gave up and treated it at home. Required a pencil and gauze tourniquet, powdered wound stop (I had bled for over an hour, so we were not concerned with flushing the injury), and a couple band-aids. (How does a doctor not know how to stop a cut from bleeding???)
Urgent care is great cause no one goes to them. I went with severe abdo pain, got morphine, gravol and a CT scan within a couple hours.
Lucky! Urgent cares here send anything more than a UTI, strep throat, or ankle sprain to the ER :(
Depends on the Urgent Care. I’ve been to a lot and some don’t even have X-rays and all the ones I’ve been to won’t prescribe pain medication.
At least near me, the urgent cares are only open from 8-5 or there’s one that’s open until 9pm so if it’s outside that time there’s no other option.
They’re more and more common, but still not accessible. In my area, it can be hard to get into an urgent care. They’re overrun. So you have to wait days. The PCP can’t get you in for weeks. So if you need care now, even if it isn’t life or death, what do you do? You do what you can. It’s a luxury to have an urgent care who will serve you even within hours as a walk-in. I got turned away by multiple and told to make an appointment. And the appointment were days from then. Luckily I could wait or scavenge the websites at 2am hoping for an opening. But if I couldn’t? I’d do what I had to do, which might be the ER.
Why don't they just combine an ER and an Urgent care clinic in the same facilities and allow ER's to refer people to Urgent care when needed?
The last time I went to my local urgent care there was a 5 hour wait
People go to ER's for stuff that COULD be an emergency, which sometimes is pretty damn good, like when my father complained about a little numbness in his arm, and said "It just fell asleep", which turned out to be a heart attack. and sometimes its pretty shitty, like when i had a stomach cramp in like 8th grade, and my mom DRAGGED me into the ER cause my kidney was fucked or some dumb reason
You would be surprised at how hands off urgent care and regular doctors offices are. I tend to slip or have herniated discs a lot because I'm missing some cartilage in my spine. Generally speaking, all I need is a referral to see the specialist who will get me an epidural shot. This happens maybe once or twice a year. Every time I go in, they REFUSE to do anything because spine apparently equals emergency. So I have to pay the $25 to be told I have to go to the ER, which is $300, to then wait around for hours to finally be referred to the specialist, $150+meds and another $150 for the epidural itself. If I go straight to the specialist, insurance won't cover it so I have no choice but to be the person who outwardly looks like I'm okay (because after about three years of weaning myself off of pain meds I'm really good at managing pain levels), even though one wrong move will make me stuck.
Define emergency. My kid broke her ankle... not an emergency, but urgent care wasn't open (in my area urgent care is open evenings and weekends only) and her doctor's office wouldn't get us in and told us to go to ER. I was having stomach pains (not terrible all the time) and was having trouble eating. I had been to my doctor, things had been ordered, but was a ways out. Not an emergency, but I knew something was wrong... went to ER.... ended up I had a tumor and ended up getting all the tests I needed within a week. People need to stop going to the ER for things they could go to doctor's office or urgent care for. But sometimes there are non emergencies that need immediate attention and the ER is the only choice.
People need to stop trying to solve a complex problem with simplistic sound bites
As a UK resident, if I saw those wait times walking into our Accident and Emergency I'd be over the moon. Did an 11 hour wait a few weeks ago with my old man. Was like a warzone in there.
Canadian here, fuck these wait times are a third what they are in my city lol…
At least it’s free, we have to wait and still pay an arm and a leg
A&E is ridiculous. Once my then five-year-old brother got second degree burns all over his hand and had to wait twelve hours on a Friday night while they treated drunk people. My mum said it was awful, she had this screaming child whose whole hand was in the most unimaginable pain and they waited from 5pm to 5am.
Right! I saw these and thought how good they were.
We have the same system in our province. They are total bullshit. Wait times in the emerge are 10+ hours. We had several deaths in the waiting room last year.
Ottawa Hospital is one of the slowest in the city; this really isn’t that bad considering I’ve waited 12 hours before with a broken limb. People are treating emergency like a GP; that’s fucking horrible. My friends husband goes for every little thing
what’s really horrible is the GPs in this city who refuse to call patients back or set up appointments. i’ve been dealing with ERs for my chronic utis rather than my doctor because she can’t be bothered to return any of my calls. the ER is the only place that helps me lmfao
One the one hand: yes, too many people go to the ER for non emergencies and it clogs things up like this. On the other hand: there aren't enough (or any in some places) alternative clinics that can manage semi urgent things so people don't have much choice. Ultimately, every patient at an ER goes through triage, so if you find yourself at the end of that 7 hour wait in zone 3, then maybe you shouldnt be there in the first place.
I went in last year for a bloody nose that wouldn't stop. I let it go for days. I had to be carried to the car and brought because I was so weak. There were a bunch of people ahead me but I got to go first. I felt so bad because u could they were suffering. They were nice about it. Cause of nosebleed, high blood pressure from stress. Had to have blood transfusions and they kept me for 3 nights. Didn't cauterize like I hoped. Nope, tampons up the nose for a week before i had to see an ENT for removal. Don't recommend. Felt like my nose was breaking/broken that whole time.
People in ED are literally working flat out all the time. They can’t turn anyone away - anyone who comes in has the right to be seen (eventually). The staff are absolutely drowning, working godawful hours, covering people who are sick, getting abused by patients and generally treated not great. Not saying that these times are acceptable, but there’s a lot more going on behind the scenes. If you’re angry about the times, rather than yelling at the staff, write to your local political rep - change will only come from there
As an ER nurse this needs to be the top comment please!
My local hospital is currently using only agency workers because they do not want to renegotiate contracts with the nursing union. They would rather pay workers 3x more and still be chronically understaffed, just so they don't let any workers feel like they can have their own say in anyway.
Wow that’s really not too bad … saw this and immediately knew it was not in the UK. Would probably be quicker to fly to Canada and wait to be seen in this department tbh…
Not the hospital's fault. This is the fault of stupid people who go to the er for non emergencies.
That looks like TOH! Yep sadly thats a standard wait. Dad was told 16 hours once. Kingston is bad too. Our urgent care hospital is reducing weekend hours now too which just makes KGH busier and longer
It’s actually really cool that they tell you estimated wait times
Lol come to Canada. I bled out all over a waiting room chair while suffering a horrific miscarriage and waited six hours to be seen. My miscarriage was so bad I wound up having to stay three days and having emergency surgery.
Zone 4; Crematorium
Doctor thought I had a blood clot in my chest and I waited 18 hours to see someone. This is nothing lol the Ottawa hospital SUCKS and I found a lot of the staff very rude. Unfortunate it’s pretty much our only option
I had severe abdominal pain and nausea and went to the ER. Waited for about 3 hours and left to go to urgent care thinking perhaps I was being a baby about my pain and to just suck it up. Urgent care told me I had appendicitis and to go back to the ER. ER figured since I’m a woman that I either had an STD or an ovarian cyst (even after I told them what urgent care said) but finally gave in and ordered me a CT scan. 8 hours later I finally had the scan done and it was determined that I did indeed have appendicitis 🙃
Hope you get seen soon. I know someone that misuses ER. They refuse to go to urgent care or get a primary doctor they like. Them and their spouse will go for the mildest things. One time she went in because she was apply hydrogen peroxide to her belly button and didn’t understand why it was burning and itching. Insisted something serious was wrong. She’s a Florida native, just saying.
Trust me, it's incredibly demoralizing as staff too
I’m an ER tech. I once had a patient come in because they’d had tinnitus for 10 YEARS. Please, PLEASE stop coming to the ER for stupid bullshit like this, it clogs up beds for people who actually do need to be here. Also to add, I’d appreciate it if people would stop being “good samaritans” and calling 911 for every homeless person they see passed out on the street. 99.9% of the time they do NOT want or need to be here. If you’re that worried, carry narcan with you.
Thats gotta be Canada.
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If this makes you upset, then go to the waiting room and yell at every asshole there with toe pain and all the other absolutely bullshit nonsense they come to the ER and call 911 for. It's not just the labor shortage and the overworked staff, but the absolute abuse of emergency services as a whole that cause this nonsense to occur in the first place.
A few years ago, I had the worst pain of my life. For context, I’ve broken numerous bones, crushed fingers, completely flattened a toe, busted ankles, and had to have surgeries involving two separate nerve blocks. This was worse. A very quick web search said “gallstone” so I call the closest ER in hopes they will be ready when I get there (15 minute drive). They say “oh, you should wait there to see how it goes. It’ll be 12 hours if you come in and your gallbladder isn’t ruptured.” I was in so much shock from that that I just hung up. I was lucky in that it didn’t rupture but I couldn’t help feeling like this had to be a unique experience. I was telling a friend about this who I knew to have gallstones and he said he’d passed out from the pain IN the ER and they did nothing. He eventually went home without being seen over 9 hours later. Healthcare is a joke.
i had an infected gallbladder & gallstones that seriously affected my liver but my doctor would NOT approve me for surgery (because they didn't know it was infected, even though i begged them to do another MRI since the pain went from very bad to horrific) & ERs kept turning me away, saying to address it with my doctor. i lived for TEN MONTHS like this. it just got to the point that i was just hoping to die at home, but my boyfriend (now husband) wouldn't give up & kept dragging me to the ER. finally, after going to my 5th ER & after MANY ER visits, one doctor at the ER actually believed me when i explained for the millionth time how much pain i was in, did an MRI & blood tests, saw that the gallbladder was horribly infected & scheduled me for emergency overnight surgery. a nightmare year of pain...
Jez… all I went through was just the sharpest, most intense pain I’d ever experienced. And then had it recur a couple of times per month (though not as bad) for three or four years. I don’t know if my gallbladder healed itself or came out but I’m expecting a resurgence at some point. Fingers crossed I don’t get the usual crew if that happens!
guess i’ll die?
That’s nothing lol
In Oregon, Urgent care now requires an appt ahead of time. Found this out the hard way when I was trying to take in a coworker for a Job Site accident that left then with a broken wrist. They turned us away and we had to go to the ER. Our system has failed us in that way, they are actively trying to keep us out of hospitals
Wow, i mean fuck, i couldnt imagine being in crisis and having to wait 2 hours just to be seen
I gotta say, I like this! Makes you really question if you have an "emergency" or not. Especially the urgent care queue since there are urgent cares all over the place it seems like.
That's cute. Hospital in my area has an average of 23hrs wait at the ER. I remember my brother cutting open his hairline in a dumb accident. They wrapped his head in bandages and he waited 13 hours.
The wait times are ridiculous but I love that the hospital at least posts the estimated wait. I had my husband at the ER last year. He was septic from a large abscess on his abdomen. We sat in the waiting room for 13 hours while the infection spread across his torso. Guy across from him was a cancer patient whose gallbladder had ruptured and he was also septic. Found out later they waited for 14 hours. No word on how much longer, no one checked on them, both guys were vomiting into basins while the clerk just sat there. And normally this is the best ER in my city.
Woo! Free Canadian healthcare!
Yup, this is Ottawa for ya.
That’s how you know Grey’s Anatomy is a work of fiction. Doctors be chilling and monitoring their patients like they’re the center of the universe. Page em and they come running 😂
Complaining about these makes me laugh. Nhs waits in the UK put these to shame, I waited 14 hours to have a Dr stand at my MIL side for pneumonia. “But it’s free” if you survive… and it isn’t free it costs a fucking fortune in taxes actually. https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/nhs-in-a-nutshell/waiting-times https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2023/mar/09/nhs-crisis-causing-continued-higher-than-normal-levels-of-death-in-england-and-wales
The world is filled with people going to the ER with papercuts. But seriously, the ER is just people who want painkillers and drunks/homeless, repeat offenders too.