Even before flu season reaches full swing, emergency rooms from Boston to Las Vegas are packed, a sign that overcrowding troubles first reported in California three years ago may be worsening. Ambulances sometimes must travel farther to hospitals because the closest ones are full.
Patients wait for hours.
A crisis team meets regularly in Massachusetts to discuss the problems plaguing Boston hospitals, which are often so full they must send ambulances to hospitals farther afield. The state is considering asking the National Guard for help if the problem worsens. Las Vegas ambulance companies, scrambling to keep up with demand, have threatened to tell paramedics they must leave patients unattended in busy emergency rooms if the hospitals can't find E.R. beds within 30 minutes. The average time paramedics wait now is 46 minutes. Phoenix emergency room doctors met Dec. 18 with representatives of the governor, health department, hospitals and ambulance firms, asking that hospitals adopt disaster plans, cancel elective surgeries and take other steps to ease crowding.