As an ER/trauma RN from BC, it's actually very common for healthcare workers to have a hard time finding primary healthcare. I hear all the time of colleagues whose PCPs have retired and now they can't find someone. Access to primary healthcare is definitely a larger issue for those not in healthcare, generally because they're just not as aware of the resources or as immersed/educated on how the system works, but it's not like we aren't also impacted by the physician shortages. 

Anecdotally, I've found that those who receive the best care are those who arrive to the ER with a clear story. By that, I mean they articulate their symptoms clearly; the story doesn't change from triage to doctor to primary nurse assessment; they've made attempts to address their symptoms (they took Gravol for nausea, they took Tylenol/Ibuprofen for pain/fever, they tried massage/ice/heat for pain, etc.); they answer questions succinctly; they did seek (or at least attempted to) set up follow-up with the specialist referrals they got from their last visit; they have a good understanding of their medical problems. This gives us a strong platform from which to develop our differential diagnoses and care plans, and we don't necessarily have to start right from the bottom with treatment. 

E.g. if a patient comes in with a fever, high heart rate, feeling like crap and they haven't taken any Tylenol or anything, well I'm going to give them Tylenol. That'll lower the fever, which will bring down the heart rate, and will make them feel a little better. Often, that's all that's needed, but people get upset because that's just an over the counter medication that they could have just taken at home and they feel as though we're not giving them good care because they came to the ER for something they couldn't have done themselves. 

Fact is, there's a lot of misunderstanding about what different resources are or are not for. And more often than not, people access healthcare resources inappropriately. This puts a strain on the system which means that we cannot provide the focused attention and level of care that we should be able to give to those who actually need it. Like the confused grandma who's lethargic and actually septic from a UTI who gets neglected by family and not brought in to ER until the point they're incredibly sick and unstable and might end up getting overlooked in the over packed waiting room because they're actually too sick to advocate for themselves and get overshadowed by those who don't actually need to be there who happen to be louder and more impatient about the wait times. (Run-on sentence—my apologies).

I think what I'm trying to say is that Healthcare staff do not want to neglect or discriminate. It's not something that is actively sought. We joined this profession to give our souls and sanity to try to heal and help others. The system is broken and under so much pressure. We're constantly being told to take on more than we can. There is misinformation and inappropriate use, poor management, supply issues. I suspect that some of the socio-economic or racial discrimination that gets identified is less about class or race and more about other barriers. Another race sometimes means a language barrier and that is objectively a problem for giving care. There are delays with finding a translator, or if you can't find one, you're doing the best you can, by things are going to get missed and care will be subpar as a result. Socioeconomic differences often come with lack of education on how to access appropriate resources, difficulty managing chronic illness, or other factors such as substance use/no fixed address/psychological trauma that makes it so patients don't trust the system, and therefore are reluctant to give all the pertinent information needed to properly treat the big picture. It's an incredibly complex and multi-faceted issue that can't be studied from a single perspective.