A new report on emergency room wait times places the state in the bottom tier nationally. The report reveals on average it takes nearly four hours for ER patients in California to see a healthcare provider. KPBS Reporter Kenny Goldberg has the story.
The report is based on some one-and-a-half-million questionnaires ER patients filled out nationwide last year.
California is the eighth worst in the country in terms of longest ER wait times.
Dr. Roneet Lev directs emergency services at San Diego's Scripps Mercy Hospital.
She says the real problem is the lack of available hospital beds.
Dr. Lev: If you walk into any emergency department right now, you will see that out of all the beds, a great percentage of em, are holding patients that need to go upstairs.
Dr. Lev says long ER waits aren't due to an excess of people with minor complaints. Instead, she says it's because there's not enough capacity to admit all of the seriously ill patients.
Kenny Goldberg, KPBS News.
