Emergency Room Wait Times
If you arrive at the hospital by ambulance, you will be seen more quickly than if you check yourself in.
I have been able to confirm the above statement, previously told to me by sources, on two separate visits to Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan.
Every incident may vary, but here’s what I found out.
Arrive by ambulance:
Three hours to release
(Friday afternoon; no injury)
I crashed my bike because of a mechanical, and was brought to the Bellevue Emergency Room on a board. I waited on a gurney for maybe 15 minutes before being wheeled into a room for observation. Several doctors spoke to me at various times to check body parts, ask about the crash (the mechanism of injury), and so on. After three hours when no injury was observed, I was released.
(Thanks to Maria for staying by my side until the EMTs arrived, and also locking my bike up for me.)
Arrive by checking yourself in:
Seven hours
(holiday weekend)
I fell in a sidewalk crevasse and sprained an ankle. I called for an ambulance, asked for an Aided Report to be filled out, and tried to calm down. After deciding that I could get myself to the emergency room without the thousand-dollar ambulance ride, a fellow pedestrian flagged a cab for me. (Thank you!) I arrived at Bellevue Urgent Care at about 3pm on Mother’s Day and waited about three hours before seeing the nurse. Another three or so hours for xrays. I was given crutches, wheeled out to the street in a wheelchair by another nurse, and got a cab home at about 9:45pm.
In both cases, I received excellent care from this public hospital.