To be honest urgent care is very often like that in any country.
As it’s urgent people just pop in because something is wrong enough that they don’t want to wait for an appointment for a day or two.
But wrong is relative. Maybe you are actively dying right now, or maybe you need stitches today but not actively bleeding this very second and can wait a few hours without harming you long term.
So the emergency would triage people putting those who actively dying forward and people who are just over worried to the back. As there’s always a decent amount of people who are actively dying and resources are limited, those who don’t often have to wait a couple of hours for their turn.
I know that USA has its own level of shit on top of this, as there’s many people for whom emergency care is the only option so they would come, dying or not, but generally speaking queue in emergency department isn’t a good indicator of the overall situation.
![image showing [OC] Health care in the US. "Urgent" care](8ec21525-e00f-53e7-bfbd-2f4dbb527931.jpg)
Naroyto on August 21st, 2025 at 16:54 UTC »
Urgent care ≠ emergency care the way they use their terms.
quick_justice on August 21st, 2025 at 16:58 UTC »
To be honest urgent care is very often like that in any country.
As it’s urgent people just pop in because something is wrong enough that they don’t want to wait for an appointment for a day or two.
But wrong is relative. Maybe you are actively dying right now, or maybe you need stitches today but not actively bleeding this very second and can wait a few hours without harming you long term.
So the emergency would triage people putting those who actively dying forward and people who are just over worried to the back. As there’s always a decent amount of people who are actively dying and resources are limited, those who don’t often have to wait a couple of hours for their turn.
I know that USA has its own level of shit on top of this, as there’s many people for whom emergency care is the only option so they would come, dying or not, but generally speaking queue in emergency department isn’t a good indicator of the overall situation.
Qbr12 on August 21st, 2025 at 17:13 UTC »
That's what urgent care is, wait time measured in hours.
If you need to be seen in seconds to minutes, you need emergency care.
If you need to be seen today, but you can wait a few hours, that's urgent care.
If you have time to schedule an appointment and come in a few weeks later, that's your primary care.