Isn't this normal for non-emergency emergency ?

If it wasn’t an issue for the emergency room triage would have sent them home or moved them to a minor injuries unit.

And my boss wonders why I quit here in the US. 10 hr ahifts turning inyo 12-16, no breaks. lunch, and consistently having to breqk our backs for 300+ pts who live on 2nd floors, taking appts we cant meet reliably, and having to be the ones to apologize despite telling dispatch we cant make the new call they accept on time because we're 45 minutes away for a 10 min pickup

That's NHS

NHS has been a reliable indicator for prediction here stateside about what we are going to see (at least in my neck of the woods)

This winter is going to be absolutely brutal and I'm glad I'm out before it explodes further.

If they could wait 4.5 days, they probably didn't need to be in the ER in the first place.

True, depends on the country I guess

>Health staff have been taking part in industrial action over pay, leading to disruption to services and hundreds of medical appointments postponed.

So because staff are negotiating better contracts their bosses are trying to blame then for the lack of staffing? Sounds about right.

Majority of ER visits are for non-emergencies.

No, the bosses have actually done all but come out and directly state they support them actualply.

It's impossible to know just how emergent his issue is without knowing his issue. But if he was stable enough to wait in the ER for 4 days, it doesn't sound horribly emergent.

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.

>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.

>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.

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This is unheard of if you’re homeless.

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My husband is a paramedic and good lord the calls he gets 🙄 He took a kid in for a broken finger. Mom followed in her car. She did it because people believe if you arrive in a squad, you get priority treatment. I wonder how long it took her to figure out that that's not true lol

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.

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.

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It depends on the situation. I went to the ER many years ago with a 140 resting pulse rate.

It turned out to be benign, but even they couldn't tell that without running a battery of tests and several follow up visits to a cardiologist.

I am a paramedic. We bring people straight to the waiting room all the time. I will give certain patients a heads up that they will most likely go to the waiting room.