As one who worked for 20+ years in a large hospital's ER I can assure you of a couple of things.
1)All hospital ER's have "regulars".Some are folks with real (usually chronic) illnesses,some are mentally ill,some are homeless,some are junkies and some are just "pains in the a$$" (my term).
The other thing I can assure you of is that it's *never* a good thing to have a patient,particularly a "repeat customer",die in your ER's waiting room when screaming in pain and,allegedly,after having been been basically told that they not gonna do anything for you.
I repeat...that's *NEVER* a good thing.
I spent part of my youth working as an ambulance dispatcher. We also had several doctors on our switchboard. There was one patient who always called at two am, demanding to talk to her doctor. She was always in extreme pain, though the location varied from call to call, and she was always ‘on the verge of death’. When I offered an ambulance, though, she’d always decline, and... after half an hour on the phone... all her symptoms would disappear and she’d start getting ‘frisky’.
Talked to her almost every night for six months. My replacement was still taking her calls a year later.