Code Gray: Death, Life, and Uncertainty in the ER

by Farzon A. Nahvi

Nevertheless, it is common for institutional funds to be spent not on hiring more nurses and doctors in order to address this life-threatening danger, but on billboards, magazine advertisements, and posters plastered on subways and buses, all eagerly inviting even more people to come to our already overcrowded facilities. We spend our finite resources not on solutions that might decongest our emergency rooms and save our patients’ lives, but on marketing campaigns designed to attract yet more people to hospitals that have already proven themselves beyond their capacity to safely care for them. Focused on billing codes, documentation levels, and operational costs, those who run our hospitals sometimes seem to forget about the oxygen saturations, blood pressures, and heart rates that represent the ultimate point of our efforts.

Profit Over patients