As visits to hospital emergency rooms rise, the shortage of medical specialists to treat the patients who show up there is growing, the Washington Post reports.
The dearth of specialists taking on-call duty for emergencies is delaying treatment as patients wait longer for a specialist to show up or are transferred to other hospitals. “It can mean death,” Linda Lawrence, president of the American College of Emergency Physicians told the Post. “Patients have died in transport, or waiting to find a neurosurgeon, or getting to a heart center for a cardiologist.”
Specialists often agree to take on-call duty in exchange for admitting privileges to the hospital and use of the facilities. But the growth of specialty hospitals and outpatient surgery centers have decreased their interest in general hospitals, the Post says. Fear of lawsuits, the flood of uninsured patients and an unwillingness to compromise one’s personal life may also be factors.
Some hospitals are addressing the problem by employing full-time specialists or paying doctors extra for taking ER call.
