Discrimination in the Emergency Department There is discrimination in the emergency department because of the need for health care workers to implement standards in determining the extent of condition of patients brought to the emergency department for treatment for purposes of prioritization . It is in the process of screening the emergency of patients brought or seeking treatment in the department that discrimination occurs , through the ineffective or limited application of objectives and professional standards during the screening , flawed or baseless screening results , and weak prioritization decisions . Discrimination in the emergency department could occur on the part of individual health care workers or due to the policies implemented by the emergency department . As such , the solution could require institution-wide effort in ensuring the implementation of sound policies for the emergency department together with an anti-discrimination culture encompassing the professional practice and actions of individual emergency health care workers . An emergency pertains to the any critical situation or life-threatening condition . Since the definition is broad , it allows health care workers in the emergency department room to exercise judgment in deciding what scenarios comprise an emergency . Common criteria applied in determining an emergency include unconscious patients rushed to the hospital ,potential stroke victims , patients identified to have suffered serious blood loss , or patients with broken bones especially if this involves the spinal column (National Health Service , 2007 )When the emergency department faces one or more of these criteria ,together with other similar intervening factors , especially when many cases are received , the people in charge of the emergency department have to make decisions on a number of issues . The wide-range of allowance for personal judgment of health care professionals in the emergency department (Aberegg , Arkes Terry , 2006 ) together with the need to make decisions with limited time requiring screening skills and experience as well as the implementation of objective professional standards (Gulland , 2003 ) opens room for biases and subjectivity .First decision is on whether the cases taken singly comprise an emergency (Aberegg , Arkes Terry , 2006 . If so , then the case is considered for emergency action . If not , then the case is referred to the appropriate department . However , the determination of whether the cases constitutes an emergency should be made using professional standards to prevent the intervention of discriminatory practices such as considering a case as an emergency not because it constitutes a life threatening situations but because of biases against one case relative to the other cases (Gulland , 2003 .Second decision is the prioritization of all the cases determined as emergencies , brought to the emergency department at one time or in a given period (Aberegg , Arkes Terry , 2006 . The emergency department operates 24 /7 so that personnel work on a shift basis resulting to a minimum number of personnel on standby at one time . The number of personnel on standby depends on the trends in emergency cases based on the experience of the hospital and expected periods of the occurrence of emergencies such as forest fires and heat waves during the summer . With limited…