Delays In Treatment At A Hospital On Holiday Staffing

With the Memorial Day weekend, there are some problems which plague all hospitals. That is the skeleton crew. Weekends are notorious for having a less amount of staff. And holidays are also renown for the most experienced staff to take the day off. These means that Memorial Day weekend, a three day weekend, is least likely to have experienced staff present and working.

To a patient with life-threatening injuries, this can be fatal.

When hospital emergency rooms are light on staff, they will try to cut owners when possible. Unfortunately, this may mean not providing all patients the full attention that the patients need or want. This means that patients may not get the procedures they need, the medication they require, or the careful supervision they need to remain safe.

If a patient in an emergency room is delayed treatment due to staffing issues, that does not excuse the hospital from providing medical treatment. No, absolutely not! Hospitals must triage patients, or categorize their injuries to assess their order of priority for care and treatment. This requires hospitals, even short staffed, to get patients in need of help treated immediately.

If a hospital is short staffed and cannot provide treatment, it really needs to call more people in or get staff from other departments to help. A patient who is in an emergency room following a car accident should get treated in roughly the same amount of time when the hospital is fully-staffed or holiday staffed. The standard of care does not change. Patients should not be harmed because a hospital takes staffing shortcuts.