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Abstract
Lacking any conventional definition, the phenomenon of so-called "bed-blockers" concerns
the issue of long-stay inpatients in short-term units. Our paper explores this question
in the context of French Emergency Rooms (ERs) and focuses not on "bed-blocking" as
a patient phenomenon but rather on the social constructs developed around these patients
by ER professionals. In this paper, we present a case study on one of these "bed-blockers"
and venture some hypotheses regarding this phenomenon. On the one hand, it appears
as a dysfunction in the healthcare system. Indeed, French ERs take on patients that
specialized medical units are reluctant to admit, either because they do not fit into
any one specific scientific or clinical category, or because they are not "profitable"
when analyzed using care-management tools. On the other hand, bed-blockers play an
important role in building a positive identity for the French emergency doctors and
personnel performing the "dirty work" of treating them.