[dont__panic]

Ugh, I'm so sorry you had to go through that. For other folks reading this: yes, three hours doesn't sound like that long a wait. But I'm willing to be those felt like the three longest, most stressful hours of your life when your mind is racing with possibilities and fears about the future of your wife and/or baby.

[brimble]

If it's anything like my Dad's recent trip (I went with him—kids who haven't had to deal with hospitals, always make sure someone else is with you to watch out for you if you have to go in, there is a good chance you'll have a bad time if you don't) the waits are super-long even for people who are obviously in a lot of distress, and they also don't communicate at all about where you are in the triage pool, so you're looking at people who you overheard saying they've already been there three hours when you got there, and they do seem like they need help, and you're like... how fucking long am I going to have to wait? And there's no answer, which I get, but if they could at least tell the ones who definitely aren't getting in "you're low-priority and we have no hope of seeing you today, we're just waiting until you get frustrated and leave" (this was the end result for like 50% of the people in the ER that day, from what I could tell, some of whom really did seem like they needed to get in) exactly that, it'd relieve some stress to know you're not in that group. The lack of communication bordered on abusive, for that reason, and I get they can't give an exact wait time, but at least saying "yes we do actually intend to get you in at some point" would be nice.