Jennifer Zelmer Patients Quotations

We found that over half of patients visiting emergency departments were there for less-urgent or non-urgent conditions, things like chronic back pain or a sore throat. Whereas at the other extreme, less than one per cent who visited emergency rooms were most severely ill - people with diagnoses of shock or major trauma.

Where alternatives are available, this raises questions about whether a portion of these types of patients can be appropriately treated in non-emergency department settings, such as primary health care clinics.

One thing that's important to remember is that these are individual patients -- your son or daughter who went to an emergency with a broken arm or your grandma who ended up there with a heart condition.