http://www.ctmc.org/

A Day in the ER

Walking into the emergency room at Central Texas Medical Center off of Wonder World in San Marcos, a mid-aged Hispanic woman paced the area outside talking on the phone. Her daughter had been in a car wreck and she was waiting to hear from the doctor.
Entering the hospital at 2:33 in the afternoon through the automatic sliding glass doors, the air smelt of a mixture of rubbing alcohol, sanitizer and medicine. Directly in front was a large wooden desk with two staff members behind it. Neither of them looked up from their conversation as we passed by toward the spread out cushioned chairs where sixteen people anxiously sat. The people were all sitting in the sky-blue colored chairs except for two elderly women who were sitting in wheelchairs.
Three teenage boys of mixed races occupied the seats closest to the entrance. They stared mindlessly at the large flat-screen television playing an episode of NCIS. The room was well lit and a large window took up most of the wall from the middle of the room to the far end. Sitting in front of the window in the middle of the room, a middle-age white man was sitting with two Hispanic teenage boys. He talked on the phone telling someone that a nurse had told him that he’ll have to wait. He began to complain about the waiting time and that the staff wasn’t doing their job well. He claims that “this is starting to be a royal pain in the butt”. After hanging up the phone he tells the boys to go outside with him. He, the boys next to him and the three boys that were watching television stood and followed him outside.
In the middle of the room closer to the wall, the woman who was talking on the phone outside was sitting next to a middle-age Hispanic man. She is talking to him about the car wreck, stating that, “the impact was hard”. After noticing our presence, the man began to whisper to her. A woman who appeared to be in her thirties walked in the entrance and signed in at the desk. She wore a pink shirt, pink shorts and white flip-flops. She sat down in the chairs preciously used by one of the teenage boys watching the television.
At the far end of the room, a Hispanic man, woman and two young girls sat in front of another large flat-screen television. This TV was playing the Disney channel. The two young girls were eating donuts bought for 85 cents from the vending machine. The area around them was scattered with empty Styrofoam cups and canned sodas. Magazines are spread out on the tables in front of the chairs.
A nurse came into the room and called for “Frederick”. One of the workers at the desk told the nurse that he was outside. Seconds later a male and a female nurse walked into the waiting room. The female called “Julie” and the man followed with “Michael”. A man stood up and followed the male nurse to an area marked “triage”. The female nurse once again called out Julie’s name. The woman in pink then informed the nurse that she believed the woman was in the restroom.
By 2:43, there were only ten people in the waiting room. Another female nurse came in and called out “Shannon”, the woman wearing pink stood up and followed the nurse out of the room, only seven minutes after she had signed in.
When walking out of the emergency room, a young boy with an older woman were walking in. Outside, the people continued to enter and exit the hospital.
Although the staff behind the desk seemed to not notice anything going on around them, the patients did not seem to be waiting too long before being admitted. Looking around the emergency room, each person had their own story as to why they were there, each had their own grief painted on their face. The only peace they seemed to find was among their friends and family next to them, trying to hold their emotions together while waiting to hear results from the doctor.