BANGOR – Ambulance drivers headed for the emergency department at Eastern Maine Medical Center on Thursday morning were directed across town to St. Joseph Hospital instead after EMMC announced it was overloaded.

The diversion went into effect around midnight and was lifted at about noon, according to a hospital administrator.

Lorraine Rodgerson, vice president and chief nursing officer at EMMC, said it doesn’t happen often – maybe four times in the past year.

But when hospital beds are all full and the emergency department is, too, there isn’t much choice but to send ambulance patients elsewhere. St. Joseph is the nearest and most reliable alternative, she said.

“This morning at 7 o’clock, there was not one inpatient bed available [at EMMC] and there were 12 people in the emergency department waiting to be admitted,” Rodgerson said.

EMMC’s 350 beds have been pretty well filled most of the time recently, she noted, and the hospital is planning a much-needed expansion.

Sometimes it’s St. Joseph that needs backup. Judy Street, St. Joseph’s administrator of emergency services, said Thursday that when the private Catholic hospital gets overwhelmed, ambulance drivers head for EMMC.

But on Thursday, her emergency department had room to spare, there were inpatient beds available and enough nurses to care for new arrivals.

Rodgerson said its not uncommon for EMMC to receive patients rerouted from outlying facilities.

“We routinely get calls from other hospitals in our area saying they’re closed to admission because their beds are full or their staffing is down,” she said.

According to paramedic and firefighter Greg Hodge at the Bangor Fire Department, ambulance diversion is becoming more common.

“It’s a nationwide problem that’s just starting to get to Maine,” he said. So far, it’s never happened that both St. Joseph and EMMC are too full to take ambulance deliveries, he said.

“If that ever happened, the nearest hospital is in Pittsfield or Ellsworth,” he said.

Hodge said most people have a preference of which hospital they want to go to, but so far no one has kicked up a fuss about being taken elsewhere.

“Usually, when they find out one emergency room is backed up, they’re relieved to go someplace less busy,” he said.

No matter how badly crowded it is, the EMMC emergency department always treats certain patients. Ambulances carrying children, women in labor, severely injured adults or anyone with chest pain will always be accepted, Rodgerson said.

She noted that, even when the waiting room is jampacked, federal law prohibits emergency department staff from suggesting that less acutely injured or ill people should seek treatment at a walk-in center instead.

“Sometimes when we discharge them, we tell them they might want to check out walk-in care next time,” Rodgerson said.

EMMC offers walk-in services at its health care mall on Union Street, and there are a number of other facilities in the area as well.