However it is obvious that, should they wish to wait, they will be attended to when all other more urgent cases have been seen. And this is what some patients find unacceptable. More often than not, the valued advice of the triage nurse is ignored. Meanwhile, the more urgent cases are being treated out of sight in the treatment area. A small number of cases deserve a mention at this stage.
Some cases require immediate resuscitation.
These are deservedly very demanding on staff and time. Of course no one case is the same as another and every patient needs adequate time for treatment. One case may need a few minutes of medical and nursing time while another may take up to an hour with various specialists having to be involved. The manpower resources of the Casualty department are not inexhaustible. There are a set number of nurses and doctors manning the Emergency Department 24 hours a day, every day of the year.