Emergency room visits nationwide have been on the rise for several years, but area hospital officials said the Christmas holiday season is not a particularly busy time in the department.
“We often see (patients) due to holiday travel and changes in routine, but it’s not an especially high volume,” said Dr. Michael Fitzpatrick, director of Geisinger Medical Center’s Department of Emergency Medicine.
His department sees a few more children than usual during this period, mostly due to youngsters being out of school and visiting new surroundings.
Unlike July 4, the Evangelical Community Hospital isn’t bustling with an increase in “holiday-specific” injuries or ailments during Christmas and New Year, emergency room coordinator Patti Faux said.
Unpredictable weather does have an impact on ERs, officials said.
“If it’s snowy or icy outside, there tend to be more visits related to motor vehicle accidents, shoveling injuries, and slips and falls,” Sunbury Community Hospital spokeswoman Emily Kissinger said.
“When we think of the holidays, we think of sick people, unless there’s particularly bad weather,” Faux said.
There may not be a spike in visitors during this particular time, but Fitzpatrick said most ERs across the country are being used more throughout the year.
For the past seven years nationwide, ER visits have risen about 4 percent each year.
At Geisinger, they went up from 44,552 between July 2008 and June 2009 to a projected 47,000 this year, he said.
“There are a lot of different reasons for that, and most are politically charged,” Fitzpatrick said. “We are having to accommodate more people, and we’re happy to see them all.”
Visits to Evangelical Hospital’s emergency room have been pretty stable, at 31,767 in 2008 and 31,274 so far this year.
Besides wintry weather-related issues, other common problems that bring people in for treatment during the last week of the year are depression, as well as diabetes and heart disease, because many people with these medical problems have dietary restrictions they don’t follow during the holidays, Kissinger said.
An ER nurse for 25 years who worked many holiday shifts, Faux said the roads on New Years Eve tend to be safer than any other time of the year when it comes to injury-related crashes.
“I think that’s due to DUI safety programs,” she said.
Still, holiday celebrants should be cautioned against drinking and driving, as well as making sure to use seat belts and keeping a close eye on children and seniors, said Fitzpatrick.
“What we see is especially tragic during the holiday season,” he said.
The reasons people end up in emergency rooms during the holiday may vary, but one thing is common among all of them:
“They don’t want to be here,” Faux said.
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