My wife had to go to the local ER yesterday. No worries, she’s fine now. But she told me that they had patients waiting out in the visitor lounge, lying on the couches. People were vomiting where they sat, and worse, which made it sound like a horrific scene. Her description makes me think of stories of the 1918 flu pandemic.
Are we in for a very bad flu season? Or is this normal, just from people getting garden variety flu during the winter?
Well, I’ve lost an uncle and a grandfather in the past week, and stand good to lose an aunt soon. Maybe there’s really something to that “people hang on until after the holidays” thing?
Our ER is pretty much full every night but then it always is, so I guess it’s business as usual for us.
Bunch of pneumonias but given that our patient population is fairly old (VA hospital) that’s also usual. Not many flu cases at all that I know of.
Or plague.
I worked in an ED for 3 years and on an ambulance for 5 before moving on. In my experience, emergency departments do tend to be busiest this time of year, due to probably a couple of factors.
The first is what you alluded to–it is cold and flu season, and many people go to the ED thinking that something can be done for them. This should go on for a couple months.
Additionally, immediately after the holidays, there are more people showing up who have been ill for a while but did not want to be in the hospital over the holidays. Some of these people may still be showing up, but most of them present on December 26th or January 1st. Nobody who works in an ED wants to work December 26th.
I don’t have the statistics in front of me, but IIRC the statistics from the ED where I worked support that this is their busiest time of year.
Like dwyr alluded to, perhaps just the fact that you’re not typically in an ER might lead you to think that was extra-crowded, when in fact it was normal.
No, we’ve been in this ER before, and have never seen patients have to wait outside in the visitors’ wating area.
Winter is by far the busiest time for most medical facilities. My clinic sees about 50% more patients in an average winter day than an average summer day.
We’re seeing it in our clinic right now, but–knock on wood–not in the hospital. We haven’t really had any influenza that I know of yet, though.
Las Vegas’ emergency rooms are crazy busy every day. There are a lot of factors that lead to ER overcrouding. These include:
Understaffing of the ER: This means that not all of the beds that are available can be staffed, which means they cannot be used. Occasionally happens when nurses call off sick, and cannot be covered
Understaffing or overcrouding of the rest of the hospital: Once a patient is seed in the ER, and it is establised that the patient needs further care, they have to be admitted to the hospital. It is not uncommon for up to 50% of the ER beds to be full with these types of patients, waiting to go upstairs. This may be because all the beds upstairs are full, or there are no nurses to watch the beds upstairs.
overload of patients: Some people go to the ER who don’t need to be there. These people do not have an emergent complaint, and could very easily wait to see their doctor in the morning, or at the least, an urgent care. Of course, the ER cannot turn people away, so they have to wait to be seen.
Gernerally it is a combination of all three. Now, this time of year, there is an increase in cause #3. Many people who just feel icky because of the flu will go to the ER to see if someone can make them feel better. Lots of these people even call ambulances for this. (this would lead to a rant on personal responsibility for ones health care, but I’ll leave that alone)
I don’t work ER, but we have been on bypass for two days. This is not good.
Bypass is where we have no monitored beds available to admit pts. Our ER is splitting at the seams with " ICU/Stepdown/telemetry holders" (people who need to be admitted but there is no bed).
I know I discharged/downgraded 7 people on my unit on Wednesday–those beds were cleaned and immediately filled.
I love winter the season–I hate it at work.
Post holidays, we get the three D’s: the dialysis pts, the diabetics and the drunks/dysfunctionals.
My feet hurt.
I worked ED for two years. It has a kind of feast or famine routine to it; either it’s bursting at the seams or dead as a doornail. Winter is about the only time it’s steadily busy 24/7. Increased auto accidents because of the rotten weather manage to help keep the gurneys full.
As kinoons said, a lot of people there during 'flu season don’t really need to be there, but they’re miserable and just don’t feel they can wait til the morning because their bronchitis/fever/child’s ear infection is keeping them up, and since they’re going to be awake anyway, may as well get it treated. :rolleyes: :smack:
ER overcrowding has been studied. It is particularly crowded during viral epidemics. We are seeing a lot of cases of flu and croup/bronchiolitis. Nevertheless, we tend to be busier in November and later January than December and early January, although we’re always somewhat busy.
Dr_Pap, ER MD
We’ve been seeing a lot of hospitals on divert as well as a lot of advisories (ICU, psych, etc.) since the first of the year. I’m not sure how this compares to the average, though, this is my first January at this ambulance service.
Last week my friend ( we’re RNs on postpartum) got a blood splash to the face and had to go down to the ER for blood draws and such. There were 70 people in front of her. One of our LVNs who floats there said that was typical for after the holidays.
Cyn, OB/GYN RN
Bolding mine. We need a smilie that’s green and holding its hand over its mouth. This will have to do for now. 
urgh.
I work ER (weekends only) and we’ve definitely been seeing more patients the past few weeks. We have to go on ER bypass for a few hours every couple of days because our volume has been so high. Every other ER in the city has been pretty much the same. The hospital was so full this weekend that we were having trouble getting admission beds. We were pretty lucky, though – didn’t end up holding patients for too long in the ED (most of the time).
We’ve been seeing lots of pneumonia and upper respiratory infections, which is typical for this time of year, but there’s also been some kind of raging gastroenteritis going around for about a month. Nothing life-threatening for your average person, but enough to make anybody miserable. The nurses have all been washing our hands every 10 seconds to keep from getting it.