a new era in the emergency room

Have we entered a new era in hospital/ER medicine?  It is so much more busy than it used to be over the last few months. Every day we are full with a full lobby. At first, I thought it was the flu, seasonal illness, but it has kept going.

The hospital has been full too. So people wait in the ER. Mental health beds?  Forget about it.

Is it obamacare and people having insurance? It feels like we now see two types of patients in the ER: those with serious problems and those with urgent care problems. We are seeing more and more urgent care patients.  Patient who are willing to sit in the lobby for 3 or 4 hours for a sore throat.

We are also seeing a lot more mental health patients, especially adolescent mental health patients.

We used to get an occasional day when things were reasonable and we could breathe a little bit. Seems like those days are over.