WH says Biden wasn’t trying to help friend ‘cut the line’ in ER

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki insisted on Friday that President Biden was not trying to help a friend’s relative get preferential treatment when he called a Pennsylvania hospital to ask why the woman in distress was waiting so long in the emergency room for treatment.

“It was certainly not his intention. He wasn’t trying to do that. He was checking out a friend, “Psaki told Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy, who asked,” How often does President Biden call to try to help his friends cut the line?

Biden said during remarks pushing vaccination warrants in Illinois on Thursday that he had spent the previous night on the phone with an unidentified reception nurse at the hospital after a friend told the president his partner ” had trouble breathing, had a high fever, and couldn’t really catch his breath.

“And they took her to the hospital, but the waiting room was so crowded, things were so stuck they couldn’t even show her at first,” Biden said, who added. : “I called the office, the nurse reception, and asked what the situation was… And to make it short, it took a while because all – not all – the vast majority of emergency rooms and doctors were busy caring for COVID patients.

The president insisted, “I wasn’t complaining, because they’re getting kicked out of hell, by the way. Doctors and nurses, some of them are just… they’re run out. I really think so. They get kicked out of hell, and sometimes physically.

At the White House on Friday, Doocy asked Psaki “what happened next” after the president, in his own words, “asked what the situation was.”

Psaki responded by detailing the “context” of the story, which she said was that “hospitals, frontline workers, nurses, doctors in emergency rooms still see and feel the impact of number of unvaccinated people, filling beds and emergency rooms, in intensive care units. And this prevents, in some cases, people who have other illnesses, who may seek treatment, who may fear a crisis heart disease, other people who may go to the emergency room, to get the care they need.

“I have no further updates for the privacy of this individual,” Psaki added, almost after the fact.

After the ‘cut the line’ exchange, Doocy asked if the hospital might have had staffing issues’ because it has a mandate for vaccination and maybe some people had to leave because they did not want to get vaccinated? “

“I would like you to explain to me where this is the problem more than the number of unvaccinated people filling emergency rooms, filling intensive care beds,” Psaki retorted. “This is the problem in hospitals across the country.”

In recent days, hospitals and healthcare systems across the United States have started firing staff members who refuse to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

In New York, the deadline for hospital and nursing home staff to be vaccinated for the first time was September 27. no staff to offer you or other nursing homes.