The Congressional mandate that emergency rooms must care for anyone who shows up at their doorstep, regardless of whether or not they're emergent cases, has been disastrous for hospitals. There isn't an emergency room in this country that actually makes money, because they end up having to write off the vast majority of the cases that show up to their door. How do the hospitals recoup the costs of these charity cases? By raising prices on patients in every other department, naturally.
People abuse the emergency wards everyday because they know ERs are open 24/7, and they can't be turned away regardless of how minor their complaints are. So they bring cases that should be treated at urgent care or in the clinic, because they can't be bothered to seek care during normal business hours (despite the fact that most urgent care clinics are open till 9:00 or even 11:00 p.m.!). It is my firm belief that emergency wards should be able to responsibly triage patients who walk in and refer the non-emergent cases to urgent care or the health clinic. If that means the parent has to take a few hours off work, fine -- that's one of the responsibilities of parenthood.
The day I realized how bad the situation is was the day some parent brought in a child to the ER because she had a "scraped thumb" and we had to treat the child like any other patient. But what really brought it home for me personally was the day I had to bring my wife into the ER for vaginal bleeding due to miscarriage. She had to wait over
seven hours before she was brought into an examination room and still another hour before she was treated, because that day the ER was packed to overflowing with parents who had brought in their kids for sniffles and sneezes. This was during the height of the SARS scare, you see, and the egomaniacal parents of Fayetteville, North Carolina, were convinced their precious little babies must have SARS. So instead of doing the responsible thing and taking their children to the health clinic on Monday, they insisted on bringing them into the ER on Saturday. Meanwhile my wife, who under emergency medicine protocols should have been a high-priority patient, had to sit around the entire day waiting for care. Assholes.
The next time you wonder why the hospitals charge you $60 per tablet of Tylenol, blame these irresponsible people who are exercising their Congressionally mandated "human right to healthcare."