Rules for the ER

How to behave in a pandemic when your local hospital is drowning

How to behave in a pandemic when your local hospitals are at and over capacity in order to decrease the strain on the healthcare system and workers.

1)      Utilize the emergency rooms for emergencies. If you’re calling to ask if the ER is busy, if we’re full, or what the wait time is, your needs can probably be met by an urgent care.

2)      Insert photo of things for urgent care cause ER

3)      Don’t call to ask if we have COVID patients. Everyone has COVID patients. Sorry.

4)      If you are alert and oriented, please update your family regularly. If your loved one is unable to update you, please choose ONE primary contact among family and friends as the designated contact. They can then update the others.

5)      We don’t know when an inpatient bed will become available. If you have been admitted, you/your loved one will have an inpatient doctor who will see you in the ER and you will receive medications, imaging studies, and therapies as you would upstairs.

6)      ED rooms are reserved for life threatening conditions and infectious diseases and based on need. There is no VIP status right now. We don’t like hallway beds anymore than you do. It’s very demoralizing than being berated for things completely out of our control.

7)      If you are waiting, there is someone sicker who is requiring care. If you see a bunch of staff in one room, it means that person is actively trying to die and we are ACTIVELY trying to prevent it. Unless you are actively dying, please wait and DO NOT enter that room.

8)      Carry a list of your medications, past medical history, and previous surgeries with you.

9)      Make sure your wishes are known in the case you may not be able to speak for yourself.

10)   Utilize face time and phone calls to speak with your loved one. They are scared and alone. You communicating with them does wonders for them, more than us telling them you called.

11)   The visitor policy is what is. Please respect it.

12)   Concerns regarding capacity, inpatient bed wait times, and hallway beds should be directed to those who can control it. The average nurse has zero control over these things.

13)   Utilize mask wearing and social distancing in your life, to prevent further overcrowding and spread of COVID-19 so this doesn’t get any worse than it already is.

— the Midwestern One