A Negligent NAMC ER Situation

 

Note: The following blog concerns only complaints against the administrative staff in the North Alabama Medical Center ER. We have never heard anything but excellent reports concerning emergency department physicians and nurses. If you should, for whatever reason, believe you have a complaint concerning professional personnel, comments on this blog are not the place for such a discussion.

The ambulance arrives at the NAMC emergency department, and EMTs wheel the patient into receiving. Then they wait...and wait.

These responders can't just dump a patient. They have to wait until the patient is officially admitted to an ER room before they can retrieve their equipment and leave. It happens multiple times a day and should be pretty straight forward.

Lately, these EMTs say this process has been anything but quick. Some crews have reported wait times as long as two hours. At times, as many as five ambulances have been backed up, unable to leave until they can officially hand over their patients.

When five units are backed up, that's five units that can't go out on calls. In the Shoals area, that is a problem, a big problem.

The ambulance personnel feel that these delays are unnecessary. In short, they feel the administrative staff at the NAMC emergency department are not doing their jobs, perhaps even enjoying making the EMTs wait.

We're sure administrative support is also stressful, but it seems something is very wrong in the NAMC ER. Whatever it is, it needs to be sorted.

We welcome any comments from NAMC employees, both administrative and professional. You may send to Shoalanda.Speaks@gmail.com.