SPRINGFIELD, Mass (WGGB) — Luz Oquendo-Mateo showed up at the Baystate Emergency Room at 5 pm Wednesday night with abdominal pains.
“I proceeded to just wait and wait and wait and the wait took exactly 12 hours for me just to be called in,” Oquendo-Mateo said.
Luz thought new equipment and more space would mean shorter wait times in the new ER. Baystate says not so fast. Vice President of Emergency Services Deb Provost says since the ER opened Monday, they’ve seen over 1,000 patients, 20 % more ambulances than normal. Compared to the same week last year, they also have an 80% higher acuity volume. In other words, lots of critically ill patients, but why?
“It really is just that patients are a lot sicker,” Provost said. “We had 3 patients in the first four hours of the emergency department being open that had strokes. It’s acuity like that and acuity that the patients are very sick.”
Provost says that fills up the hospital and creates back logs in the ER waiting rooms.
“We’re not going to sacrifice someone’s care to move them out quicker and so we are dealing with the patients as they come in,” Provost said.
The average wait time is 3.5 hours. Provost says this week it’s closer to four or five. She says Luz was the exception. After arriving at 5pm Wednesday, she finally left at 7am Thursday. She says many other patients walked out before being seen, but not her.
“I was just starting to get frustrated it was probably about 9 hours,” Luz said. “I made up my mind that I was already there 9 hours, I might as well stay. Obviously if they are there they are in need of care. They might be in pain and so it’s kind of sad. I was really saddened to see that because I really trust Baystate Medical Center.”
Baystate says they’ve actually added staff to accommodate their new space in ER.
“Unlike when you buy a house you have time to move in and get settled,” Provost said. “In an emergency department, you open the doors and the patients are there. I think we are doing the best that we can to meet our community’s needs.”
Provost says for everyone’s sake, she hopes the recent spike in acute care averages out soon enough.
A big issue is there are a lot of unnecessary people going to the ER, who should be going to their own doctor for whatever ails them.
go to OnCall or UrgentCare instead!
Is their a way to prioritize those with natural illness emergencies over those out there shooting and stabbing each other? Especially those that don’t cooperate with the police. I’m not including innocent bystanders in this statement…
I’m just not sure why one would wait until drs offices are closed (after 5pm or on weekends) THEN decide they need medical attention.
If you have masshealth and need medical after hours ur only choice is the er. The urgent care places don’t take masshealth.
True,but a lot of them are looking to score scripts to take or sell . My doctor has a no narcotics rule. Maybe other docs do too.
I was there last night for an actually emergency and besides the 6 hour wait I had awful patient care. Poor planning and staffing the new Er should not effect patient care and it did.
@Becky -I’m curious what makes you comment about people waiting until 5pm? But here’s a couple ideas.. Sometimes you think a dull pain is nothing, and you take an OTC painkiller (Tylenol/IBUP) and hope it gets better at 2pm. All of a sudden at 5pm, the pain med is wearing off and the pain is actually worse with other symptoms, too. so now the doc’s office is closed and you have no choice but to go to ER. Or, your doctor’s office closes from 12:00pm to 1:30Pm (like mine does) for lunch and then you get busy signals. Or, the nurse calls you back at 4:15, and tells you to go to the ER, but you live 35 minutes from the ER, and got stuck in traffic for 10 minutes, because 3 ambulances were holding traffic up, bringing in stroke victims. SMH. The article doesn’t state that she delayed going to the hospital, it just says she showed up at that time. An 12 hours is way too long to wait. I know the new ER is in its infancy, and I hope wait times do improve. But never go to the ER alone and wait that long for care. This article hits a personal nerve and I probably shouldn’t be commenting. But I am, because I lost a family member due to long wait times at BS ‘s ER. I would prob go back there, if the wait times were truly improved.
GO TO “MARY LANE HOSPITAL” IN WARE (if possible)! Much faster and good care! Baystate affiliate. Or, Wing in Palmer. Most people are in and out in 2 hrs or less!
That’s nothing new
The problems is one there is not enough help for the case load. Baystate is the 3rd busiest hospital in the country. There needs to be more nursed and Drs. This is where they become over worked ad people make mistakes. As far as poor care that can happen in any hospital. I come from a medical background and would never go to a hospital that is not a teaching hospital. So I will go to baystate and wait. 2nd I see people who could wait to go to there PCP. A UTI is not a medical Emergency. Also the case load does not go by what time you arrived people. It goes by order of high priority.
I got into a car accident Tuesday afternoon after 2pm I was brought by ambulance and got there around 3!! They had no clue where to but me I got a wrist band thing when i got n!! then out n the wait room with every 1 else!! Was out there for 10 hours!! Not to mention with a back issue! A night time supervisor came out saying it be a 13 hours wait it was bs!! I was so much n pain never going to Baystate again!! 80 new beds yea ok!! When I did get seen was 120 am!
More hospitals need to have pediatric wards so this doesn’t happen. My stepson was having a seizure and was told to go to the ER at Baystate today, but after 5hrs of waiting, we took him home. If more hospitals had pediatrics, it would be so much easier on families with sick or injured children.
i went to the Cooley Dickenson ER because my own dr. told me to because HE had no clue what was wrong. I was put on their “FAST TRACK” list. There were very few patients there that day, yet I still waited 4 1/2 hours for a dr. to tell me the same thing.
If you get mass health and have a situation other than emergencies, they should have to pay. I’m all for if its an emergency, but they go for a lot lessor things.
@crystal I too work in the medical field and am aware that it is based on tier level due to the initial diagnosis and I can still say that beside the wait, the larger issue here is still the lack of good patient care. Whether someone has mass health or private insurance I can say that the level of care that was given to me personally was unacceptable. You are correct it can happen anywhere but it shouldn’t happen, especially at Baystate. What use is the new technology when the actual providers aren’t up to par?
I come from a medical background and people just use the ER as a primary care office. They come in with sore throats, chronic back pain, earaches, I vomited once today, my child has a fever and never gave motrin or tylenol at home. These are not life threatening emergencies. People think if they take an ambulance to the ER, they are automatically guaranteed to stay inside the ER. If it’s not life threatening out to triage and the waiting room you go. People abuse the system, calling 911 for back pain, knee pain etc. Some people come in daily for the same problem,sometimes twice a day!! More primary care doctors need to step up to the plate and start seeing there patients instead of saying “go to the ER”. Also if MassHealth had a co-pay a lot of these frequent flyers wouldn’t be coming and other people would think twice if they had to pay their co-pay up front. I work in an ER and have a $100 deductible if I use the emergency room!
I am an ER nurse and people abuse the emergency room. They come for chronic back pain, sore throats, earaches, vomited once today, child has fever but never given tylenol or motrin at home. These are not life threatening emergencies!! People think if you take an ambulance in your guaranteed to stay inside, wrong if its not life threatening out to triage and the waiting room you go. People use the emergency dept as a primary care office!! Primary care doctors need to step up to the plate and take care of their patients instead of saying “go to the ER”. Also if Masshealth had a co-pay people would think twice if they had to pay it up front. Some people we see daily and sometimes we see the same patient twice in one day!! I have a $100 deductible if I use the emergency room!
Also people reporting need to get their facts straight!! There is no more DIVERSION no matter how full an ER is!! We haven’t had DIVERSION for the past 4-5 yrs!!
I work at Saint Vincent’s in Worcester and used to work at BMC. The acuity the article mentions is true, the census has spiked tremendously for us in the past week after Thanksgiving. We are always loaded to the rafters with people waiting to be admitted despite being a small hospital– it’s not uncommon for as many as 30 beds needing discharge at one time, and I presume the ER is worse.
baystate is amazing–my family of 4 was in a car accident this past summer and they were amazing-great care–especially for my kiddos-
So….after all the complaining she was never admitted for a serious injury or illness? So maybe she had gas? Maybe she ate too much? Maybe she didn’t actually need to go to the E.R. to begin with? If it was serious she wouldn’t have been complaining to the news about her long wait because she would have become an inpatient. People like this just tie up resources and then complain about long wait times. I’ll bet she doesn’t even have a Primary Care MD and thats why she went to the E.R. – Oh and who continues to wear the E.R. ID bracelet after discharge unless they are just looking for attention?