Forum: Hospital waiting rooms shouldn't be patient warehouses

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

By Shari Berg / Herald Forum

As I write this, an 89-year-old woman is sitting in the emergency waiting room at Providence Regional Medical Center Everett.

She is uncomfortable and cannot have her family around her. She was brought in by ambulance with possible internal bleeding. She was told to go to the emergency room by her doctor after having been monitored by the Dispatch Health team while at home. It is midnight and she has been waiting for a room for almost seven hours since she arrived. She was given an IV and is being monitored, but the emergency room is so busy and the hospital is so short-staffed, that no one can say when she’ll get a room and care. This woman is my mom.

Security guards at the hospital will not allow family to be with the patient until they are in a room. Rooms are not available on the floors, so patients sit in the emergency department and sometimes never get into a different area of the hospital. This means that new patients coming in cannot get a room and must be treated in the waiting area.

Our hospital systems are failing. This is happening all over the country. Providence’s new building seems obsolete before it was even finished being built. Between population increases in the area and the increase in drug overdoses, among other strains on the system, there is just not enough room for all the patients needing help on a daily basis. During covid, nurses left the hospitals and went on to other jobs. Pay is not keeping up with the demand and stress is put on the nurses who did stay. Providence needs more money, more doctors, more nurses and more room to grow. It is only going to get worse.

https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/forum-hospital-waiting-rooms-shouldnt-be-patient-warehouses/

[RainCaster]

1. Drugs is a big part of the problem

Queue the song "God damn the pusher man".
Firefighters in Snohomish County are administering Narcan at least 4 times per shift. There is a serious problem with synthetic opiods there, as well as meth. I wish there was a death penalty for drug dealers.

[IbogaProject]

2. This is all from racists who have opposed single payer health insurance since the 1940s

The ER problem dates to a court case from the 1980's where the ER can't turn you away so it is the only option for the uninsured. This is a good issue to push universal health care, specifically single payer insurance. It is estimated that we would save money as a nation the first year and continue to gather increased savings as more preventative care happens. We need to push for uncrowding the ER so there is room for actual emergencies. This overcrowding in the ER hurts us all.

[raising2moredems]

3. Are you her healthcare POA??

If so, then you should be there with her.