We’ve all had the misfortune of sitting in an emergency department waiting for care, whether for ourselves or for someone close to us. We see or feel the true anguish another individual is experiencing while waiting.
Every minute of waiting seems like an hour.
How about more than an hour or even more than 190 minutes? That is correct; the average wait time at a New Jersey emergency room is 194 minutes before departure.
That statistic is based on new data collected and presented by High Rise Financial, which reviewed data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid to establish the average median time a patient spends in the emergency room before leaving. After the data was collected, the states were ordered in order.
New Jersey was the sixth poorest in the country, with 194 minutes. Our colleagues in New York averaged 202 minutes, and you’ll be pleased you weren’t at an emergency department in Maryland, where you’d be waiting for over four hours!
The incredibly old but true argument goes that New Jersey is the most densely populated state, and sadly, some people treat the emergency room like a walk-in clinic with minor symptoms and a need for emergency-level care.
This severely limits overworked emergency room professionals and their ability to provide beds to additional people in need.
During a recent visit to the emergency room, it was noticed gurneys lined up with people in the hallways, jammed up and crammed next to each other. Those accompanying the patients had no space or chair to sit, which was quite uncomfortable to observe and experience.
You can’t blame the emergency department workers. They were working feverishly to care for the overwhelming number of patients, and it appears that for every patient they discharged on their way or admitted to a room, two more were admitted to the emergency room.
More funds for more workers, larger emergency rooms, and better solutions for quick examinations and treatments for those who do not require the extensive care that the emergency department delivers. Be patient and try to understand, and we sincerely hope you never have to go.