Not only are emergency departments congested, they’re unsafe.
At least that’s what a survey of doctors and nurses said. The majority reported their EDs “consistently lack sufficient space to deliver patient care, with a third saying the number of patients consistently exceeds their capacity to provide safe care. On the staffing front, two-thirds reported that nursing staff is insufficient to handle patient loads during busy periods, and 40% said they don’t have enough doctors to handle patient loads when it gets busy.”
There is no more money to hire additional providers and nurses to staff the departments appropriately, and as more doctors leave generalist practice, access will continue to suffer.
The situation will only worsen if universal coverage is enacted, which will infuse the system with almost 50 million more insured patients looking for care.
