Ok my sister was just recently in the emergency room, due to possible bacterial meningitis. She was in a room with a sliding glass door and it was said that only one nurse was allowed in and noone could enter without that nurse knowing. My sister rang for her nurse like three times, after about 20 mins I think it was(maybe more), one of the resident doctors came in. If you were another nurse and knew this patient kept ringing the bell for someone what could have and should have been done? God forbid she had died or something. She was having an allergic reaction to one of the medicines they gave her. I just do not understand why noone seemed to be sure she was ok for that long of a period. I understand they were probably told not to go in and all, but should they not have done more to be sure she was ok? The resident was not able to locate the nurse for awhile either after he had made sure my sister was ok.

I can't speak to the specific emergency departments that you both had encounters in. I can tell you what happens in my department and also in generalities because most of the problems we have are nationwide. My department is a 36 bed Trauma Emergency Center that sees about 75,000 patients a year. Our average daily census, so far this year is around 204 patients and having 220-250 is common. We are currently half the size we need to be. Stories such as yours are, I'm sure, commonplace in ED's nationwide. Does this make it ok? No. Patients with acute abd pain are common, but are not at the low end of the totem pole by any means. Being on the patient's side vs. the caregiver in the past has proven useful. The perception of time is greatly skewed when you are sitting behind a curtain in discomfort. To me what seemed like an hour was actually about 25 minutes. I can't answer as to why your didn't receive the care you believed you should have. What I do know is that misused, overcrowded ED's who can't get their admitted patients upstairs because of a full house will always have situations like these.
Jen...you refer to a time frame of 20 minutes and question how it could be acceptable for someone to not know how she was doing for that long. I have to tell you, in a busy ED if you go an hour between someone checking on you, that's pretty good.