The Doctor Won’t See You Now
Hours-long wait times in emergency rooms aren’t just inconvenient. They can be deadly, and they’re the norm again.
Last week, my wife was transported by ambulance to an Arizona hospital’s emergency department with a concussion. Her case being relatively urgent, she was ushered to the front of the line for observations and scans. Not everyone is so, um… lucky?
The waiting room was packed with miserable people, mostly seniors who sat glumly while having their vitals checked periodically as they waited to see a doctor. Most had no visible signs of acute illness or injury. Some were clearly in pain, brows furrowed, eyes closed, exhausted. One person groaned off and on. They all wanted to know one thing:
“When will I see a doctor?”
“I don’t know and I can’t say,” the nurse repeated several times. Patients are admitted based on need, not strictly on when they checked in, she said as she checked more vitals, explaining that the worst cases often arrived by ambulance, implying that nobody in the waiting room was on the short list.
After an hour or two, and with waiting-room seats filling up, I was let into the critical care unit. It buzzed with doctors and nurses treating patients lying on gurneys in the hallways. My wife had…
