Published September 5, 2022
On Friday night, paramedics in the metropolitan area struggled to get a patient out of an ambulance and into a Landspitali emergency room, RÚV reported. All the beds in his Landspítali emergency room at Fossvogur were full.
A duty officer at the Metropolitan Fire Department, which oversees ambulance transport in the metropolitan area, said the situation that occurred Friday was not unusual. However, they emphasized that priority patients are always given an ER room while paramedics provide care to those waiting in ambulances.
As previously reported, 14 nurses resigned from the emergency department at the end of the month. Some quit due to pressure from their department.
Landspítali director Runólfur Pálsson described the situation as a major concern, but argued that a better future awaits. A nurse and assistant to his head of the emergency department, he said Hildur Dís Kristjánsdóttir said the department doesn’t need to be as heavily staffed as it used to be because the number of patients admitted regularly has decreased. The hospital’s declared goal from September 1 is for him to have no more than 20 patients in the emergency room at the same time.
