Member-only story
Emergency Rooms Need to be Reserved for Emergencies
Please think twice before taking a seat in front of someone who needs it.
When my kids were little, it seemed as if we were in the emergency room far too frequently. My son has asthma and before we figured out how to control it on our own at home, his breathing issues usually popped up in the middle of the night. He’s also “all boy” — loved to play rough with his friends. Three different sets of stitches stemmed from a toy hammer between the eyes, a rock to the forehead, and a collision with the corner of our neighbor’s coffee table. Then, there’s the time he got his big toe stuck in a moving treadmill, leaving him with a mangled toenail that will forever gross me out.
In each of those instances, I remember receiving the best of care. There was never a doubt that we were in good hands and that our emergency would be well attended to.
Unfortunately, I had a recent emergency room experience myself that might bother me for a very long time. Not because of the outcome (I ended up being fine). But because of what I witnessed in the ER itself. I’ve tried to make sense of the experience ever since, but it’s not easy. The best word I could use to describe the seven hours we spent there that afternoon would be “chaos.”
