Posted on 02/18/25
| News Source: FOX45
Baltimore, MD - Feb. 18, 2025 - According to Baltimore City Councilman Yitzy Schleifer, Baltimore City’s emergency medical care system is experiencing an emergency of its own.
“I think it’s a matter of life and death,” he said. “Across the board, we have a high call volume and we're short staffed, and so, when our EMS personnel are standing in the hallways of ambulance bays at hospitals for extended period of time, that's keeping them from saving the lives of patients out on the street.”
At a recent hearing with Baltimore City’s Fire Department, frustrations were raised over the amount of time ambulances spent held up at area hospitals. Between the time an ambulance arrives and leaves a hospital, the fire department says 30 minutes is the national standard, but in Baltimore City, “It really runs us about 50 minutes to an hour,” fire officials said.
Earlier this month, fire officials said Sinai Hospital of Baltimore held them the longest, averaging 70 minute drop off times.
“That's more than double what they should be averaging and that's quite concerning,” Schleifer said.
In response, Sinai Hospital claimed wait times are influenced by a number of factors, including high inpatient volumes brought on during cold and flu season. The hospital also says its ER is “well into a major expansion and renovation” that will help reduce wait times.
But they’re far from alone, “Maryland ranks dead last in hospital offload around the country. In Maryland we’re dead last. We’re 50th in offload,” fire officials said.
And if ambulances are waiting, patients are too.
According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Maryland has the worst emergency room wait times in the nation, with patients waiting an average of four hours to be seen.
“I’m like, he got there in the ambulance. Why is he not in a bed?” Chemine Coleman questioned. “’I'm going to get someone. I'm sorry. We're full. I'm sorry. There's no beds’, just the same stories, but no urgency, no real care, no real compassion.”
Overnight at Johns Hopkins Howard County Medical Center, Chemine Coleman says her daughter’s boyfriend waited nearly seven hours to been seen for complications related to a gunshot wound he sustained last December.
“He’s in pain, constipation, vomiting, throwing up. His wounds were oozing fluids,” Coleman said.
Once he did see a doctor, “They said he needed to be admitted, but there's still no beds,” she claimed.
Coleman says they’re now making the trip to George Washington University Hospital in DC, hoping to receive more timely care.
The hospital said due to privacy laws they can’t comment on a specific case, but did say addressing the overall issue is a top priority for Johns Hopkins.
Leaving people like Coleman asking, how long will they have to wait to see shorter wait times?
“There’s no care, there's no love, there's no real support and no one listens,” Coleman said.
Full statements from both Sinai and Johns Hopkins can be found below.
Sinai Hospital statement:
Emergency department wait times are influenced by numerous complex factors, and we believe the data cited in this post may not accurately reflect the current reality at Sinai Hospital. Sinai is well into a major expansion and renovation of our emergency department, with key initiatives already demonstrating improved efficiency and reduced wait times.
Like hospitals across the state this winter, we face challenges with very high inpatient volumes, which can impact ED flow and bed availability for new patients. These system-wide capacity issues affect not only Sinai but all hospitals in our region, as well as the EMS teams working hard to transport and care for patients.
We are incredibly grateful to our dedicated emergency department team, who work tirelessly under these challenging conditions to provide exceptional care to our community.
We remain committed to working closely with our EMS partners and other community stakeholders on efforts to reduce wait times, promote understanding of the challenges facing all emergency departments and ensure the best possible care for our patients.
Johns Hopkins Medicine statement:
Johns Hopkins Medicine (JHM) is committed to providing safe, high-quality care for our communities. We are aware of the challenges concerning wait times in emergency departments across the country and throughout our state. Addressing this issue is a top priority for JHM.
We do not always have an open bed available for our emergency department patients as quickly as we would like. We do have processes in place to ensure that each patient is quickly assessed and continuously reassessed by a health care clinician during their wait to address any urgent medical needs. Our hospitals are operating nearly full, which, in turn, creates capacity management challenges. Therefore, patients who are admitted to the hospital are often waiting for an open inpatient bed. The emergency department continues to care for these patients, occupying treatment spaces, preventing the emergency department from receiving patients from the waiting room. This is both a state and a national trend.
There are several causes for extended wait times including high demand for services. For example, insufficient space in behavioral health and skilled nursing facilities outside of the hospital setting poses challenges when attempting to discharge patients and find appropriate care settings for them when they require these services.
The issue of extended wait times is one that emergency departments across the state and country are facing and is impacting the health care industry at large. Johns Hopkins Medicine is partnering with other hospitals in the state, the Maryland Hospital Association, and state government agencies to identify and solve drivers of wait times in our emergency departments. We will continue to work diligently to minimize delays and will continue to collaborate with health care providers and leaders locally and nationally to work toward lasting solutions for complex challenges like these. Further, we care about our community and remain committed to maintaining the legacy of trust we have built through decades of service and compassionate care.