Emergency Department Boarding Stories

"We have 26 beds in the emergency department but often over 50 total patients. We are not allowed to go on divert as [redacted] County does not allow us to. It is often very unsafe in the emergency department when there are too many patients without any physical space or enough nurses to care for them. It puts physicians in a bad place as we have to continue to except ambulance traffic without being able to care for them or the 20+ patients in the lobby. Currently we have wait times over six hours at night just to be seen by the doctor. It is only a matter of time until there’s a bad outcome secondary to not having enough resources to care for all the people seeking care in the emergency department."