We spent at least nine hours in the Emergency Department of Strong Memorial Hospital yesterday. The E/D was renovated and enlarged about three or four years ago and was state of the art at the time, especially for this area.

Now, not so much.

The E/D was overwhelmed yesterday and the lovely wife’s health care reflected that. It wasn’t poor, but her diagnosis and treatment were affected visibly by the condition of the E/D.

We were in hallway bed J. I saw markings up to ZZ, suggesting that as many as 52 patients could be put into hallway beds.

Her bed had no cardiac monitor, and no nurse’s call button. There was no access to oxygen.

As presented by the paramedic, and through the call from our doctor, she was there for evaluation of potential congestive heart failure. They drew blood, and did an EKG in a timely fashion, and she was referred to the cardiac specialists faily quickly. Her x-ray and echo cardiogram followed.

Then we waited for a bed in the Heart Failure unit. She had no food, and a glass of ice water to drink. We were in the E/D from about 12:30ish to after 9 p.m. and about the last four hours were waiting.

Meanwhile people came and went in actual E/D rooms. In fact, I saw at least three of those people leave AMA, against medical advice.

The hallway beds limit movement in the hall, including the transport of patients for testing. They block supplies that are stored in the hall and prevent equipment such as automated IV poles from being placed out of the flow of traffic.

The hallway beds mean that you have no privacy, and the patients around you have none as well. It almost certainly violates the HIPPA federal privacy regulations.

As put to us by a variety of cardiac Fellows, the department head and the head of the Heart Failure unit, the lovely wife’s condition was serious. With her blood pressure and weak heart, she was at risk of a non-survivable cardiac rhythm. Despite her very limited mobility, she was left to get herself to the bathroom as the Lasix began to work and she had to get up every half hour.

She is a difficult patient at times. She refused some medications, because she would have to take them on an empty stomach. She knows her body and that would have made her ill. She refused some procedures because they wanted to do them right there in the hallway, with no privacy.

Federal law or regulation prevents hospitals like Strong from turning people away no matter how crowded they might be. This results in days like yesterday, when some people get less optimal care than others because of the crowd. Had my wife been in an E/D room, she could have called a nurse when necessary. She would have had a television to watch while waiting. And procedures that don’t need to be public could have been performed.

The bumsicle in bed H and the wandering loon in 3 Right did not need the level of care that my wife did. There was no better place to send them and they could not be turned away.

Nine hours is a very long time when you’re scared and worried.