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medpundit |
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Monday, January 02, 2006A record-breaking number of patients, most with flu and pneumonia, caused east Mesa's Banner Baywood Medical Center to close its emergency department for about three hours New Year's Day. Outside the medical center, paramedics from the Mesa Fire Department assessed potential patients, referring them to other hospitals as Baywood surged to capacity. "You try everything you can creatively to help patients," said the hospital's public relations director, Coiya Lynne. "This flu is just killing us." Baywood's emergency department closed at 11:30 a.m. after more than 90 patients needed immediate attention. Fifty still needed to be seen when the department closed and another 43 patients were waiting for beds. The department reopened about 2:30 p.m., Lynne said. Officials did not know how many patients may have been turned away when Baywood closed for three hours. The medical center partnered with the fire department to help potential patients requiring emergency treatment and to offer suggestions on where else to go. It doesn't say whether all 90 of those patients had the flu and pneumonia, or if they were just unusually busy this long holiday weekend - when many doctors offices were closed. But, this kind of scenario isn't unusual at most hospitals - even outside of flu season. Our hospital often has to close its emergency room doors and reroute ambulances to other hospitals. It tends to happen when there are no more rooms available and people end up sitting in the emergency room waiting to be admitted to the hospital. It also happened routinely in Syracuse, where I did my residency training - for the same reasons. The article doesn't say whether this was an unusual situation for the hospitals in the town, or just a situation the reporter never heard of before. I suspect the latter. posted by Sydney on 1/02/2006 07:28:00 PM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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