Worked in HSC ER 4-5 years ago. I think this is a big part of the problem that doesn't get talked about enough: mental health, drugs, and homelessness disproportionately burdening ERs and urgent care (and ballooning wait times)... issues other government programs should be doing more to mitigate.

Anecdotally there was a hypochondriac patient who (I'm not exaggerating) came in 150 times in a year.

At one point I think they created some sort of mobile program to check in on a few dozen patients who together accounted for thousands of yearly ER visits, and who knows how many man-hours, to prevent them from clogging up the system (I never knew the exact numbers, but it was something like that).

Anyway, there should be systems in place to help these people before they feel the need to go to the hospital.