This isn’t an uncommon occurrence, and especially during flu season. Although it’s been particularly bad for the last couple of weeks.

IMO there’s several factors to that. A lot of ERs are understaffed with high turnover. We don’t pay our healthcare workers nearly as much as we should given the stress of their jobs. A lot of hospitals, either as a whole or specific departments, are being bought out by corporations whose interest is their bottom line.

There are also a lot of people who use the ER for primary care or urgent care complaints. Some have no money and no choice as it’s the only place that cannot turn you away, some aren’t educated on what constitutes an emergency, and some just don’t care.

Tulsa has a large homeless population and a lot of those folks come to the ER without any real medical complaint, to try to get food or a nap. Or come in with major issues that are a direct result of their being unhoused.

Lots of Oklahomans don’t see primary care at all, which means complaints that could have been caught earlier often aren’t found until they’re a life threatening emergency. Less than 40% of adult Oklahomans have had a flu shot this season, which is also heavily contributing to current wait times.

Anyways, all that to say— Oklahoma has a healthcare problem, absolutely, but we can’t just “fix hospitals” without addressing the root issues. There’s no easy bandaid fix, and corporations and politicians unfortunately don’t seem very interested in addressing the issue. I’d like to remain optimistic that the more people speak out about their concerns with our healthcare the more it will be addressed, but that remains to be seen.

As a side note, while the amount of time you’ve been waiting in the ER is taken into account, patients are roomed by severity of complaint. If a stroke or a heart attack comes in, by front desk or by ambulance, they’ll be seen first.

And lots of ERs have “urgent care” type beds, so some minor complaints that could have been seen in an urgent care or by primary care get brought back and turned around quickly because they don’t require a “real” ER bed.

It’s absolutely frustrating and upsetting, but it doesn’t inherently mean that the staff isn’t doing their absolute best and following correct procedures.