LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — The emergency room is naturally one of the busiest areas in any hospital.
"Every day over the last weeks we've seen an acceleration in the number of Arkansans seeking care in our emergency departments," Hellen Palencia, an ER nurse at UAMS, said.
In the last month, nurses like Palencia said they are overwhelmed because of the increase in people coming to the ER.
"Not everybody who comes to the emergency department needs emergency treatment, but when they do we have to take the sickest person," she said. "Just two months ago our waiting room, at most, we maybe had 10 people and now we've got 30 plus people waiting in our waiting room."
Dr. Rawle Seupaul, with UAMS, said patients can usually expect about a 20-minute wait time.
But with the recent surge in cases, he said that wait could be much longer now.
"Across all times and all days. Two hours or so to get back to a room, but there's a range to that. So it can be fairly quickly or extending out to four plus hours unfortunately," Seupaul said.
At CHI St. Vincent, it is a similar story for the ER staff.
"Not only an increase in the number of COVID patients that we are treating, but also an increase number of people that are ill and more acutely ill than we'd ordinarily see during the month of July," Dr. Gerry Jones, Chief Medical Officer for CHI St. Vincent Infirmary, said.
To handle minor visits, he said they are equipped with more rooms beyond the emergency department.
"Our staff in the emergency room is trying to be both flexible and creative in ways that we are able to get to patients that are not going to be admitted," Dr. Jones said.
They are still working to find ways to reduce the wait time, so people who are not severely ill can go home quickly.
"We have physicians who will go out and and will actually begin to see and visit with patients when they first present to our triage desk," Dr. Jones said.