Vincent Rajkumar: A friend waited in a big city emergency room for 5 hours

Vincent Rajkumar shared a post on X:

“A friend with an acute scalp injury needing multiple stitches waited in a big city emergency room yesterday for 5 hours to get treated.
Unfortunately this is quite the norm in the US. Why?

First for many patients it is hard to contact a doctor or get an appointment in time to be seen, and the emergency room is the only option.

Second, for uninsured patients the emergency room is often the only way to get medical care.

Third, patients struggle to be seen in time for common health issues, develop serious complications waiting, and then head to the emergency room with an emergency.

Fourth, emergency rooms are short staffed and many are closing down.

As a result of the above factors, emergency rooms have far more patients needing care than they can handle. This means long wait times even for people with major genuine health emergencies.

To make matters worse, many emergency rooms cannot quickly admit patients who need hospitalization because the hospitals are full. So patients wait have to get care in the emergency room till they can be admitted.

An emergency room visit is far more expensive for the system and the patient.

We need major policy changes to solve these complex problems. We need people with skills and vision in these matters in leadership positions.

Emergency rooms try their best to triage and provide the best care. Individual doctors can only do so much. Some of us tell patients to contact us directly by phone or email so we can avoid emergencies. But these are not the solution.”

Source: Vincent Rajkumar/X

Vincent Rajkumar is a Professor of Medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and Chair for the Mayo Clinic Myeloma, Amyloidosis, and Dysproteinemia Group.  He also chairs the Board of directors of  The International Myeloma Foundation and the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) Myeloma Committee. His extensive contributions include over 230 peer-reviewed publications, predominantly focusing on multiple myeloma and related plasma cell disorders. Furthermore, Dr. Rajkumar is a Section Editor for multiple myeloma and related disorders for Leukemia and an Associate Editor for the Mayo Clinic Proceedings.