LARGO, Md. — The Prince George’s County council is meeting Monday with hospital leaders to address long hospital wait times.
The Council's new Board of Health consultant, Dr. Lakisa Blocker, and representatives from Adventist Healthcare Fort Washington Medical Center, Luminis Health Doctors Community Health Center, MedStar Southern Maryland Hospital Center, and University of Maryland Capital Region Health will be meeting to discuss wait times and how to improve them.
“We have heard many complaints all over the county regarding long emergency room wait times,” County Council Vice-Chair for district six, Wala Blegay, said.
Blegay is hoping Monday's meeting will provide some context on why residents are sometimes waiting hours for care. According to data from the Prince George’s fire department, during the month of June, the longest time a unit was held in the hospital waiting for a patient to be transferred from EMS to a hospital bed or triage was six hours and 5 minutes. In January, that number was 10 hours and 30 minutes.
"What is the issue, what is the resolution, what is the data?" Blegay asked. "We have representatives from the Capital region, from Luminis, all of the hospitals within Prince George’s County. We’re not attacking anybody but we do think that solutions should be on the table."
Prince George’s Fire Department says these long wait times are impacting their department. It decreases the number of available units able to respond to an emergency and the department responds by activating what it calls LERP – or a limited EMS resource plan. This increases demand for help from neighboring counties.
LERP is activated when 60% of all available first responders are committed to calls for service. From January through, that’s happened 164 times, according to department data.
"The idea is that we should make it better so that residents do not have to leave the county to receive care, especially during an emergency," Blegay said.
A level two LERP is activated when 80% of first responders are on a call. According to data from PGFD, that has happened 10 times since January.
The council meeting is Monday at 10:30 a.m. at the county administration building, and the public is welcome to attend.