At work we had a complete shutdown. In our 13 bed ED we had 9 of those beds filled with patients waiting to be admitted. Madness! And, yet, all too common a phenomenon. The economics of medicine and the politics of nursing have created a perfect storm of bed shortages. Patients just bunk out in the ED waiting for a hospital bed to open up and that creates enormous back up in the ED waiting room. Absolute madness--no civilized society would do this. Even double-bunking patients only got us as many as five or six working beds. And we had a PA training in ED1. So instead of me, alone, trying to keep a hold on 16 beds, it was me and a PA managing 6 beds. A slow day at the office. So be it--the variety makes for a nice change of pace. But if this keeps up...yet another California ED will have to close. California medicine is in crisis, California Emergency Medicine is in failure. U-561