I have accompanied my close relatives to the Los Robles emergency room several times and found that on most of the occasions, it was packed to capacity in unpredictable hours. Patients check in on a first-come, first-served basis, and only those patients transported by ambulance find a smooth sailing because most of them are life-threatening cases, with the exception of an instance narrated by Barbara O’Leary wherein a sick child was brought back in an ambulance after waiting a couple of hours in the emergency room. This could be a solitary case, but if it becomes a general practice, it needs to be reviewed.

It is my understanding that presently there is no yardstick to measure the seriousness of the ailments of the patients waiting in the emergency room unless they are examined by the doctors. Some may be real life-threatening, but for some reason, they go to the emergency room on their own without using the ambulance. Once this is prioritized, the segregation of contagious people sitting for hours or so is possible, as appropriately suggested by Barbara O’Leary.

This really is an important issue and must be diligently handled and a plan of action formulated.

The completion of the huge expansion of Los Robles is within sight. It would be just wonderful if some viable solution is found out by then.

— Tahir I. Siddiqui, Thousand Oaks