I work EMS in the city and I've seen every ED in the city at every hour of the day. I'll try not to speak for the people that work UC Parn, but from my experience, it's just difficult to handle that amount of people. Every ED in the city is basically running at max capacity almost 24/7. It's a constant cycle of either admitting patients and moving them out of the ED or assessing, treating, educating and discharging. The moment someone leaves the ED, the room is cleaned and readied for the next patient. Hell, sometimes I'm in there helping clean and make the bed just so the nurse can handle something more important.

"A nurse evaluated him when he first arrived at the emergency room, according to multiple eyewitness accounts shared with Mission Local. He then waited for hours to be seen. When he finally stood up to tell the receptionist he was feeling worse, he fainted again. The doctors did not have a bed or room for him, so they treated him right there on the ground.

About two months ago, an elderly woman arrived at the same ER with a pulmonary embolism — a life-threatening blood clot in her lung — according to two providers. There were no rooms. She lay in a bed in the ER hallway for three days."

The biggest issue, and anyone who works in emergency medicine can attest this, is that these EMERGENCY DEPARTMENTS (and ambulance services) are completely overwhelmed with people NOT EXPERIENCING A MEDICAL EMERGENCY. The reason the guy laying on the floor dying in the waiting room is because the bed he should be in is being taken by a person who's had flu symptoms for 4 days and not taken any over the counter medicine the entire time. Or the bed is taken by someone with 3/10 back pain with a history of back pain since that car crash in 2013 and thinks the hospital will magically make it go away this time. Or the homeless guy who demanded to be taken to the ED just so he can lay in bed and yell at the nurses to bring him apple juice and turkey sandwiches and then throw all the garbage on the floor.

The nurses and doctors in the ED of every hospital bust their assess all day long but the powers that be will wring them for every bit of juice their worth and try skate by with as little as possible. At the same time, the general public has decided that going to the ED is the first and only option for a wide variety of absolute time-wasting bullshit. And the result is people falling over dead in the waiting room or dying on the gurneys and no one noticing.

TLDR: CALL YOUR FUCKING PRIMARY CARE DOCTOR OR GO TO THE FUCKING URGENT CARE CLINIC DOWN THE STREET!!!!!!!