I had a complete emotional breakdown a few years back, taken to hospy in an ambulance etc. I waited in the ER for 5 hours. Then they sent me home. It was the night of a music festival, I watched countless teen girls coming in and out being treated for drinking too much, dehydration, freaking out because they were having a bad trip. I needed help and I got sent home with a cabcharge.
As a PP pointed out- sometimes it the potential for a condition to be serious that makes a difference.
Dehydration and drug use has the potential to be very serious if not fatal. Compares to an emotional breakdown there would be very little the ED department can do for you short term other than refer u to another service (in which there are waiting lists etc) and prescribe you drugs meanwhile IYGWIM.
Working in ED, we are confronted with these questions everyday. "I'm sicker than him, I was here longer" etc and the fact it- it's the emergency department it's for emergencies. So the stable fracture your sitting there with isn't an emergency (although there are complications). You may be in pain and boy I would live to help u with that but unfortunately it doesn't always work that way. The man complaining of abdo pain and the lady with the cut finger would be seen to first because of the potential for him to develop an obstruction and her potential to develop an infection.

I'm not saying I agree with it all and I don't make the rules so please no one get upset at me... I'm just saying how it is. I have been on the receiving end too where I sat in an ED and miscarried in the waiting room during my 6 hour wait while all the druggies got seen to before me. It's just the way it is and predominately that is because GPs are to expensive or not available to manage the community so people come to us instead because we are free and available IYGWIM.
Oops. I have ranted... Lol..



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