Emergency department providers at UCSF Parnassus Medical Center are speaking publicly about dangerous understaffing that they say is causing preventable patient deaths. Nine providers reported to Mission Local that patients are suffering due to insufficient nurses and beds, with cases of patients collapsing in waiting rooms and lying in hallways without assigned nurses while waiting for treatment.
One documented incident involved a man who lost consciousness in the waiting room and waited hours to be seen. When he stood up feeling worse, he fainted again and was treated on the linoleum floor by doctors and nurses, as no beds were available. An elderly woman with a pulmonary embolism lay in an emergency department hallway bed for three days without an assigned nurse, experiencing incontinence without privacy to be cleaned. Providers describe finding patients dead in gurneys who arrived walking and talking, suffering cardiac arrest without monitoring.
Over the last three years, staffing has been cut while UCSF Health has begun running a surplus. In 2023, UCSF Health had a net loss of $116 million; by 2025, it reported net income of $809 million. Operating revenue grew 78 percent from $5 billion to $8.9 billion between 2020 and 2025. The residents’ union gathered more than 1,000 signatures on a petition demanding more nurses, additional nurses per shift, and the ability to call in extra staff when needed. The union delivered the petition on March 31 but said it has yet to hear back.
A staffing grid from March showed as many as 14 beds that were fully staffed 24/7 until early 2025 were unstaffed during certain hours, particularly early morning and overnight. Internal UCSF documents reportedly show more than 200 nursing vacancies across the hospital. Providers report patients wait 12 hours or longer for prescribed medications due to insufficient nursing staff. The boarding crisis compounds the problem, as admitted patients waiting for inpatient rooms occupy emergency department beds, leaving no rooms for incoming emergency patients.
UCSF leadership announced hiring of 10 new nurses and created a “rapid treatment area” for IV medication while patients wait. However, more than 20 nurses took early retirement or resigned in the last year, negating the new hires. A new $4.3 billion UCSF Health Helen Diller Hospital under construction is expected to increase emergency department capacity by 71 percent but remains four years away.
This article is an AI-assisted summary. All facts and figures are drawn from the original report: https://missionlocal.org/2026/05/ucsf-er-crisis-death-staffing-parnassus/