Pt was non ambulatory, wouldn't have been able to tolerate sitting in a chair, couldn't even tolerate sitting Fowlers, was laying left lateral, and was one of the very few patients I truly believed when he said 10 out of 10 pain just seeing him try to roll to supine so the nurse could get an IV and a Foley started while we waited for a bed.
As Desert says, simply too many patients, not enough ER space, even though from my station I have about 5 or 6 hospitals within a 20 min drive (3 of those being Level 1 or 2 Trauma Centers) they are routinely all filled to capacity and then some. Sometimes we can come right in and get an open bed right away and be done in 20 min....sometimes we have a 2 hour wait for a bed. You'll remember a couple months ago, I set my PR for wall time of 8 hours at one those trauma centers waiting for a bed for a BLS patient. (They told us they had 80 some people in the waiting room alone) Fortunately that is still extreme wait for us...but not unheard of either.
Basically like Desert said, here if you call 911, doesn't matter what the complaint, we are legally obligated to take you to the Emergency Room (and can not legally take you anywhere else)....add to that that it seems like (anecdotally at least) most people around here treat the ER like their Primary Care Physician....don't feel well? Go to the ER.. Need your prescription renewed/refilled? ER doc can do that..I can't afford a PCP or they can't book me for 2 weeks or (my favorite) they said yesterday if I don't get better or start feeling worse to go back to the hospital to get checked out, so since I'm feeling worse, I should call 911 to go to the Emergency Room....
