Empty ER due to Covid?

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Specializes in ER.

I work in a smaller rural hospital. We are a 21 bed capacity ER.

We barely have any patients on most of the days. Mid level providers were either furloughed or work significantly less hours now their pay got just cut.

We are being placed on on call or sent home in the middle of the shifts. We barely have tech on shifts, some nights we don’t have house keeper so we do clean and mop the floors and do the terminal cleaning as well.

I’ve always thought that I have a stable job as an ER nurse until now.

I’m just curious how is it like in your hospital.

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Specializes in ED.

Smaller level 2 hospital. Starting about 4 or 5 weeks ago our numbers of patients started dropping significantly. Nurses started getting sent home on day shift, or called off prior to the shift starting. We have also been putting nurses on call, though it was rare that they would get called in. In the last week or so our numbers have started to increase. We are seeing more of the minor complaints fill our waiting room again. And we seem to be moving into trauma season. In all I think we are going to continue picking back up, people are only willing to stay inside and socially distance for so long.

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I work in a decent size level 3 ER. A week ago they canceled all of our travelers contracts. We have at least one nurse a night get sent home early. Some nights we have maybe 3 or 4 patients in the entire ER, other nights we get slammed.

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Specializes in BSN, RN CEN.

Same here! Houston TX ! We went from seeing over 250pt/24 hour to less then HALF!! All while keeping our staff at the pt level we saw 3 months ago. It’s a nice change to not walk into a *** show EVERY shift. But instead we are ASKED to go home on call. We have the choice to use PTO or no pay...

it’s a great time to do your CEUs and unit based education! Or do an online review course for CEN/TCRN... or look for another job ...

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I work in a community hospital in Southern California and our ER is dead. Med/surg is usually closed now, too. If they happen to get a med/surg patient or two, they just transfer them to tele.

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Specializes in Community health.

I work in an FQHC. We are having a MAJOR problem in that nobody wants to go to the ED because they are afraid they’ll catch Covid. We had a patient arrive yesterday with the concern “I think I might have had a stroke.” Symptoms backed that up. We said “You have to go to the ED right now” and she was bawling, almost hysterical because of fear of Covid. She finally agreed to go via ambulance (she didn’t want her son to drive her there, for fear he’d be at risk).

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Specializes in Emergency.

We’re busy. We haven’t peaked yet, ICU is full, backflowing into ed, I’m way better with a-lines, house is pretty close to full, and we’re starting to see the folks who should’ve came in earlier but didn’t want to because they were scared & and are now really sick.

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Specializes in Vascular Access Team.

Same here but has started to pick up again. 18 bed ED, people were scared to come in to be seen. Our covid cses are starting to peak as well.

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