Wilgers Trauma Unit, Lynnwood Road

The philosophy of emergency services is not first come, first served, but rather is based on the severity of a person's condition. Someone suffering from a heart attack or stroke, for example, must be seen before a patient with a severe earache. The length of time that patients sometimes spend waiting before being seen is perhaps the most common complaint about any hospital emergency department.

At Wilgers Trauma, the staff is always mindful of each patient's convenience and does everything possible to reduce the wait. But sometimes delivering quality care to a seriously ill or injured person takes time. Of course, more physicians and nurses could be added to an emergency department's staff in order to speed service, but this would raise the cost of health care for the consumer. And because no one can ever predict when an emergency department will be busy in a given week, it is impossible to arrange extra staffing only during "busy times," although additional doctors often are on call to come in if needed.

For a patient who has been waiting to see a doctor to have stitches for a lacerated finger, it can be frustrating to see a person treated immediately who drove himself to the hospital and walked in under his own power, without an obvious problem. But what may not be obvious is that the person's reason for coming to the Emergency Unit was chest pain, which is considered a high-risk situation by the emergency staff.