Emergency Department Boarding Stories

"In the past six months, three people have died in our ER waiting room.  One only noticed when he had been sitting for >six hours and slumped to the floor. When he was found had been dead “awhile”. The patient had been triaged by a nurse, but in a very busy urban where the waiting room is always packed and people regularly wait >eight hours to be seen regularly the er physicians were never aware of this patient. We can only see new patients all day rotating through three chairs as all other beds are full. We physicians want desperately to see patients but there is a huge stop gap as we cannot pull back patients efficiently because there are no nurses for new patients. All ER nurses are now functioning floor nurses for all the boarding patients."