rooms

Patients were in the lobby, waiting, the moment it became a post-Roe America. The staff at Alamo Women’s Reproductive Services Clinic in San Antonio had just received a call from their attorney: Abortion procedures in Texas would have to stop immediately. The dozen or so patients in the lobby Friday morning would have to be turned away. The clinic staff would have to be the ones to tell them. Andrea Gallegos, the clinic’s administrator, and the rest of the staff walked out and addressed the room: “The Supreme Court made this decision today and, unfortunately, your geographical location affects your bodily autonomy,” she said they told waiting patients. Gallegos watched each word land like a blow. People cried. They screamed. They begged for help, she said. It was “complete despair.” Ho...

Each year, there are well over 100 million hospital emergency department visits in the U.S. In 2017, there were about 139 million, or 43 visits for every 100 Americans. While wait times have declined in the last decade – now averaging about 40 minutes – they remain stubbornly long. Millions of patients still wait at least two hours to see a provider – 7 million did in 2017 – and that is no guarantee they won’t have to wait even longer for treatment. In California, hundreds of thousands of patients that same year left after getting an emergency department bed but before their care was complete. How long people have to wait can have a lot to do with the outcome of those visits, sometimes with serious consequences that include longer hospital stays, increased medical errors and higher death...

Tag: rooms

Patients Setting In Abortion Clinic Waiting Rooms As Roe Fell Had To Be Turned Away

Wait times remain stubbornly long in hospital emergency rooms