It is common to find patients waiting for admission sitting in the hallways of emergency departments.

A new study suggests there is no harm in transferring them upstairs to the floor, where they can wait in the hallways there.

The sight of waiting patients on a medical floor would put pressure on the administration to open up rooms, and transfer the patient’s care to the floor nurses. Predictably, they are resisting the idea:

But nurses and government regulators have resisted, citing safety issues, “as though the emergency department hallway is a safer environment,” he said in frustration.

This is a turf war more than anything else.

Lost is the fact that much of the wait for hospital beds is due to nurse staffing issues. It would be more effective for hospitals to hire nurses than to play this game of musical hallways.