Massachusetts General Hospital in "full-blown crisis" for patients looking for emergency care
BOSTON - Massachusetts General Hospital patients are complaining about their experiences in the emergency department, but it's not because of the quality of care they receive. It's due to the overcrowding, long waits, and the extraordinary amount of people waiting to see a doctor.
"You're just sitting there not knowing, did they forget about us? It just feels very chaotic. It's overwhelming," Abby Lipschutz said.
Josh Lipschutz is battling terminal brain cancer.
"I think it's a general challenge overall for the health care community. Our experience with our doctors is great, but getting through the ED has been a challenge," he told WBZ-TV.
Respiratory illnesses increasing
Doctors believe the spike in respiratory illnesses are making matters worse.
"While hospital overcrowding has significantly affected patient care for many years, COVID-19 and the post-pandemic demand for care has escalated this challenge into a full-blown crisis for patients seeking necessary emergency care, as well as for staff who are required to work under these increasingly stressful conditions," MGH President Dr. David F.M. Brown said in a statement.
Dr. Barbara Spivak is the President of Massachusetts Medical Society and a primary care doctor in Watertown. She thinks there are many levels of problems within health care system in Massachusetts.
Why such a backup in emergency rooms?
"The emergency rooms are backed up and part of that is it's hard to get patients who need to be admitted into the hospital, into beds. Some of that is because the hospital has trouble discharging patients appropriately to long term facilities and long term facilities don't have the staff that they may have beds for," she said.
"Massachusetts health care, like health care in much of the country, is in bad trouble," said Dr. Alan Sager, a professor of Health, Law, Policy and Management at BU's School of Public Health.
What is the solution to hospital overcrowding?
He thinks some of the solutions start at the base with primary care physicians and there are simply not enough of them.
"First we train more family doctors so everybody can reach a real doctor by phone or good experienced nurse practitioner," Dr. Sager said.
At MGH, for the past 16 months they say they've been operating at capacity disaster level, meaning the emergency department is completely overcrowded. Some patients say they've waited up to 13 hours just to be seen.
"10 or 11 hours where we are still in the ED until we got into a room, which is probably the worst experience we had anywhere," Abby said.
For Josh and Abby they'll continue to come to MGH because of the great care they receive.
"It makes patients decide do I even want to go to the ED maybe I should just wait it out and stay at home. I feel the cancer patients should be separated which may be impossible," Abby said.
Dr. Spivak says one long term solution is to improve the workforce at all levels in the health care system.