What is the solution to overcrowded hospital emergency units?

Dr. Muhammad Al-Guwaiz ANYONE who has ever been admitted to an emergency unit will agree that the experience was most likely full of suffering and that they would never want to be admitted again. Decision-makers believe that increasing the space and size of these units and assigning more doctors and nurses will resolve the problem. But this is not the case. Big hospitals in Europe and the United States make the same mistake and think that increasing human resources and space is the solution. Although this solution resolves the problem to some extent, it will not end it as the expanded unit will also suffer from an increasing numbers of patients. You will still see doctors treating patients in corridors because all of the rooms are occupied. Moreover, many patients who are treated at the emergency unit and are discharged end up being readmitted again within 48 hours. Most of them complain about the quality of treatment. This means that the bigger the emergency unit, the more problems doctors and nurses will face. The more problems, the more difficult it is to come up with drastic solutions. So, what is the best solution? To find the best solution, we first have to determine and identify the mission and tasks of emergency rooms. In central and large hospitals, the emergency unit should receive victims of accidents and emergency cases, and then treat these cases fast without compromising quality. The same thing can be said about university or military hospitals. The problem is that emergency units serve all patients when in fact they should be restricted to dealing with certain cases in some hospitals. In specialized hospitals that treat difficult cases, it is wrong to let emergency units receive all types of cases because this will exhaust the energy and capabilities of medical staff. More importantly, it will disrupt the mission and tasks of hospitals at the expense of patients who suffer from incurable diseases. Those patients should be given a priority. Therefore, it is important to identify the tasks of the emergency unit for each hospital and reduce the waiting time for patients. The capability of each doctor and nurse should also be identified and their work shifts should be distributed according to peak times.