[babyslothzoo]

> maybe a quarter of the people out there in the waiting area don't

That's probably a very low estimate, depending on the ER and region anyway.

The ER is too often used as a general clinic / doctors office, psychiatric ward, or even homeless shelters in many areas. The latter issue with the homeless taking up considerable ER space and hospital beds may be unique to the west coast, where homelessness is far beyond crisis levels.

This is obviously a multifactorial problem at many levels.

[cyphar]

> The ER is too often used as a general clinic / doctors office, psychiatric ward, or even homeless shelters in many areas.

A quick comment that this is a US-specific problem. In Australia, despite the attempts by our conservative governments to ruin our healthcare system, our universal healthcare system means only people who have actual emergencies (or at least think they do) are in ERs. Everyone else goes to a GP whenever they need to, for free. Similar things are true in with regard to the NHS in the UK, or most other nations with universal healthcare.