Negative-Message-447 OP t1_j15plro wrote on December 21, 2022 at 9:23 PM

Reply to comment by Velkyn01 in Patient waited four and a half days for emergency department treatment by Negative-Message-447

The emergency room is for serious accidents and emergencies. You could need to go to A&E without it being an emergency (e.g. a broken limb, passing out as a result of an unknown cause, etc). Please bare in mind, this is happening at a time where they had to close an A&E to admissions recently and redirect ambulances an hour up the road due to the resuscitation unit in the A&E being full (both in terms of beds in use, and halls being full). It is very possible it was so bad that someone ended up sitting in the A&E for 4 days who actual did need to be there.

Velkyn01 t1_j15v2ws wrote on December 21, 2022 at 10:00 PM

>The emergency room is for serious accidents and emergencies.

Also coughs, colds, runny noses, halitosis, headache.....

Our EDs are also overrun, and a lot of it is because of people using the ED as a catch-all instead of getting a primary care doctor, using an Urgent Care or just being unable to be sick like a grown-up.

It's totally possible that this guy 100% needed to be there, but I assume they have a functioning triage system that did not prioritize him higher up for a reason.

Negative-Message-447 OP t1_j15xouv wrote on December 21, 2022 at 10:18 PM

>serious accidents

These are not necessarily emergencies.

>Our EDs are also overrun, and a lot of it is because of people using the ED as a catch-all instead of getting a primary care doctor, using an Urgent Care or just being unable to be sick like a grown-up.

You’re funny, the A&E’s in NI are phone first. When you phone you are told what service you need to use. This is not the problem at the moment. Even if someone ignored phone first, our GP’s are also under serious pressure, people are waiting over 24 hours to hear from out of hours GP’s because they can’t speak to their normal one.

>It's totally possible that this guy 100% needed to be there, but I assume they have a functioning triage system that did not prioritize him higher up for a reason.

They do, said triage system only works however if the A&E department isn’t over capacity… which all ours are.

Zenla t1_j183cpq wrote on December 22, 2022 at 10:33 AM

People are not "choosing" not to get a GP. There is a major shortage of available doctors, long wait-lists, and a great number of people without insurance who couldn't see a GP even if one was available.

Velkyn01 t1_j18iaen wrote on December 22, 2022 at 1:23 PM

Man, you'd be absolutely shocked lol

There are plenty of people who have all the means available to them who just don't do basic things to take care of themselves like make appointments with their GP, refill their prescriptions before they run out, notify family of upcoming appointments that they need to go to, schedule dialysis appointments wherever they are visiting family out of town. Those people then use the ED as a catch-all to make up for that.