You're right on that count. They keep you waiting and isolated on a hard gurney for so long that all you can think of is going home. We weren't out of the hospital parking lot when it became obvious what my problem was, although I didn't connect the dots until a few days later when I did some research on the Net. And even then, I can't find an "official" connection between stomach virus, high B/P and heart palpitations, just a whole lot of folks that had the same problems.
ERs are notoriously understaffed and crowded. Ours is in the middle of retirement communities and usually have patients lying in the hallways. To their credit though, they are building a new wing in which the whole first floor will be nothing but a new ER.
Anyone here remember the George C. Scott movie Hospital?
"Why leave the victim in Xray?"
"Because where else could they leave a body on a gurney unattended for hours and nobody even looked at him?!"