Cara M. squints and shields her eyes against the flood of hallway light, a blanket clutched at her chest, a vomit bag at the ready. She describes her migraine as an icepick stabbing through her right eye. At home, the glow from her laptop screen kicked off waves of nausea. Birdsongs landed like hammering spikes. For most of my ER career, I’d be examining Cara M. in a low-lighted, quiet-ish room. Not in today’s diluted version of health care.
She is parked in a gurney along a wall in a bright, busy, and noisy hallway, one in a long line of patients. For darkness, she pulls a blanket over her eyes. But it can’t protect against the assault of overhead announcements from a nearby ceiling speaker. So loud, we pause our conversation until we can hear each other and she can stop squeezing her ears. “What are we doing here?” I’m thinking, apologizing, fighting the urge to pull a blanket over my own head. A room number is taped to the wall above her, marking her bed assignment. Yet, if not parked in a gurney or a chair, patients like Cara M. would be counting the hours in the ER waiting room.
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— Source: STAT News (https://www.statnews.com/2026/03/18/er-hallway-beds-boarding-harm/)
