вЂњThis isnвЂ™t the first time IвЂ™ve had to sit here and wait hours, and hours, and hours,вЂќ said Ricardo Diaz, one of the patients in the recliners. So theyвЂ™ve lined up a row of brown leather reclining chairs in one hall, each one within touching distance of the other, where patients may wait for eight or more hours. But unlike the other waiting rooms, at least here they can get seen by doctor or nurse, get lab work going, and start medication.Д®very room in SparrowвЂ™s ED is full, Dusang said, walking through the beige-tiled halls. Lester Graham Patients may wait 8 or more hours in these reclining chairs that serve as a makeshift care area for those will less acute illnesses. So when these acutely sick patients flood the ER, they end up waiting hours, even days, for a bed upstairs to open up. For hospitals like Sparrow, the inpatient floors and intensive care units are full, at least partly because of COVID patients. And so when they're coming in now, they're coming in with more advanced cases.вЂќД«ut now thereвЂ™s no room for them. вЂњWe're still seeing people that may have deferred an early warning of a cancer, for example, over the last several months. Brad Uren, an emergency medicine professor at the University of Michigan and past president of the Michigan College of Emergency Physicians. вЂњWe're back to pre-COVID volumes, but we also have the added burden of the COVID patients and the sort of the backlog of patients that have been deferring some of their care over the last year,вЂќ said Dr. ThatвЂ™s because, the prevailing theory goes, so many people delayed care or just couldnвЂ™t access it during the last 18 months. But the scale of patients weвЂ™re seeing now is probably four times as many sick people as what we saw before.вЂќ

вЂњBefore COVID, we would see sick patients, and have our traumas and strokes and heart patients. вЂњPeople with pneumonia, diabetes, heart conditions.and a lot of high acuity pediatric patients as well, which IвЂ™ve never seen before,вЂќ said Kelly Spitz, an RN at SparrowвЂ™s ED. And that was before the current wave of ED patients who, staff say, seem more acutely ill than pre-pandemic. Studies have repeatedly shown ED overcrowding increases the risk a patient will get sicker, or even die. Emergency Department visits are up 43% in the last year in Michigan.

But they have to be in the hallway, with 10 or 15 people walking by every minute.вЂќ вЂњI always feel very, very bad when I walk down the hallway, and see that people are in pain, needing to sleep or needing quiet. вЂњItвЂ™s hard to watch,вЂќ said Dusang, the Director of Emergency and Forensic Nursing at Sparrow Hospital in Lansing. ItвЂ™s like she vibrates, a sort of perpetual small bounce on the soles of her practical shoes. Just looking at all the patients laying on the stretchers in Emergency Department hallways makes Tiffani Dusang physically uncomfortable.

No more room in hell fema bags