By Chris Chacon Global News
October 31, 2022
Emergency room doctors in Edmonton and across the country are sounding the alarm about the dire state of ER wait times.
“Anywhere from two to seven hours depending on which emergency department you are going to and currently I’ve seen wait times across the country even approaching 18 to 20 hours,” said pediatric emergency physician Dr. Rod Lim.
“We’re seeing emergency departments closed and we’re seeing wait times reach dangerous levels across the country,” emergency physician Dr. David Carr added.
READ MORE: Stollery Children’s Hospital ER seeing ‘unprecedented’ wait times, surge in patients: Edmonton doctor
A new University of Alberta study finds those busy emergency rooms have led to higher costs because of the need for additional care after the initial emergency room visit.
“As they get busier they have less time to spend with the patient directly,” said study author and U of A business professor Mohamad Soltani. “As an alternative, what they do is they order more tests that can be helpful in diagnosing the case.”
Compounding the problem is a shortage of staff such as nurses, resulting in greater workloads for those frontline staff in the ER.
But Soltani stresses there are things patients can do to alleviate some pressure.
“For the patient side, we propose that the next time you are going to the emergency room, just give it a second thought,” Soltani said.
“Do you really need to go to emergency room? Or do you have some other channels where you can seek care?”
Edmonton ER doctor Warren Thirsk said more robust changes are needed in the health-care system.
“We need better planning, we need to admit that we have run the system too lean, we need to come up with plans that take into account the crux of the health-care system as people, so its people who look after people,” Thirsk said.
He said these wait times and staffing shortages are the worst he’s ever seen and health-care professionals and patients end up paying the price.
“Knowing that we can’t help people like we were trained to do — like we would want our family members to be looked after — is painful to see day after day,” Dr. Thirsk said.
Emergency room doctors in Edmonton and across the country are sounding the alarm about the dire state of ER wait times and services. Now, a new study out of the University of Alberta is showing overburdened emergency rooms are also leading to hidden costs and workloads. Chris Chacon explains.
Canada’s ER crisis: Doctors urge governments to stop finger-pointing and find solutions
Teresa Wright - Yesterday- Global News
Healthcare workers listen as Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones makes an announcement at Toronto’s Sunnybrook Hospital, Thursday, August 18, 2022.
Emergency room doctors say patients are experiencing “dangerous” wait times in ERs across the country and it’s time federal and provincial governments stop pointing fingers over the “crisis” in health care and instead come up with solutions.
Hospitals across Canada are experiencing a “perfect storm” of pressures that have resulted in overcrowded emergency departments and wait times that can sometimes stretch to up to 20 hours, Dr. Rodrick Lim, medical director and section head at London Health Sciences Centre’s pediatric emergency department told Mercedes Stephenson in an interview on The West Block.
It’s every doctor’s “worst nightmare,” he said.
“The thought of anyone waiting longer than they have to in a waiting room and something happening to them because of that is every health-care worker’s nightmare,” Lim said.
“It's just something that we don't want to think about but, unfortunately, there are stories (about this happening) coming across the country right now.”
Front-line workers in hospitals across the country have been sounding the alarm about what they call a “crisis” in their ERs, due to a combination of factors that has forced many hospitals to close their emergency departments temporarily over the last several months.
Significant nursing shortages is one of the biggest concerns, which has led to bed closures in both emergency departments and within medical units in hospitals. This means fewer available beds and personnel to care for patients at a time when hospitals are also seeing a significant influx of sick Canadians. Many have no choice but to go to ERs as they are unable to access primary care thanks to a national shortage of family physicians.
Meanwhile, health workers already burned out from working flat-out during the last two-and-a-half years of the pandemic are now left short-staffed amid a surge in patients due to waves of COVID-19 continuing and an unusually early start to the respiratory virus season.
The situation is particularly acute in children’s hospitals in many parts of the country, including Ontario, where pediatric units seeing an early spike in RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) cases are warning parents of significant wait times.
“It's a tough situation… We are seeing quite a surge in RSV earlier than we traditionally see it,” Lim said.
“At the current time, there's a tremendous strain on both emergency departments, inpatient wards and ICU capacity across the country.”
Dr. David Carr, an emergency physician and clinical investigator at the University Health Network in Toronto, says emergency departments are a kind of barometer of the health system, and there are some “alarming signals” right now.
No Quick fix for Ontario ER rooms shuttered due to staffing shortages
With so many nurses retiring early and quitting their jobs due to burnout, emergency departments are not able to admit patients as there aren’t enough nurses to open the beds needed to accommodate them, he said.
It’s leading to a “cascade” of overcrowded ER waiting rooms, in which physicians have nowhere to see patients.
Teresa Wright - Yesterday- Global News
Healthcare workers listen as Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones makes an announcement at Toronto’s Sunnybrook Hospital, Thursday, August 18, 2022.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young
Canada’s ER crisis: Doctors urge governments to find solutions for ‘dangerous’ wait times Duration 2:08 View on Watch
Emergency room doctors say patients are experiencing “dangerous” wait times in ERs across the country and it’s time federal and provincial governments stop pointing fingers over the “crisis” in health care and instead come up with solutions.
Hospitals across Canada are experiencing a “perfect storm” of pressures that have resulted in overcrowded emergency departments and wait times that can sometimes stretch to up to 20 hours, Dr. Rodrick Lim, medical director and section head at London Health Sciences Centre’s pediatric emergency department told Mercedes Stephenson in an interview on The West Block.
Read more:
It’s every doctor’s “worst nightmare,” he said.
“The thought of anyone waiting longer than they have to in a waiting room and something happening to them because of that is every health-care worker’s nightmare,” Lim said.
“It's just something that we don't want to think about but, unfortunately, there are stories (about this happening) coming across the country right now.”
Front-line workers in hospitals across the country have been sounding the alarm about what they call a “crisis” in their ERs, due to a combination of factors that has forced many hospitals to close their emergency departments temporarily over the last several months.
Significant nursing shortages is one of the biggest concerns, which has led to bed closures in both emergency departments and within medical units in hospitals. This means fewer available beds and personnel to care for patients at a time when hospitals are also seeing a significant influx of sick Canadians. Many have no choice but to go to ERs as they are unable to access primary care thanks to a national shortage of family physicians.
Meanwhile, health workers already burned out from working flat-out during the last two-and-a-half years of the pandemic are now left short-staffed amid a surge in patients due to waves of COVID-19 continuing and an unusually early start to the respiratory virus season.
The situation is particularly acute in children’s hospitals in many parts of the country, including Ontario, where pediatric units seeing an early spike in RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) cases are warning parents of significant wait times.
Read more:
“It's a tough situation… We are seeing quite a surge in RSV earlier than we traditionally see it,” Lim said.
“At the current time, there's a tremendous strain on both emergency departments, inpatient wards and ICU capacity across the country.”
Dr. David Carr, an emergency physician and clinical investigator at the University Health Network in Toronto, says emergency departments are a kind of barometer of the health system, and there are some “alarming signals” right now.
No Quick fix for Ontario ER rooms shuttered due to staffing shortages
With so many nurses retiring early and quitting their jobs due to burnout, emergency departments are not able to admit patients as there aren’t enough nurses to open the beds needed to accommodate them, he said.
It’s leading to a “cascade” of overcrowded ER waiting rooms, in which physicians have nowhere to see patients.
Read more:
“We've now really shifted to just seeing patients in waiting rooms and in some cases outside of the waiting room because there's just no physical space,” Carr said.
All 13 of Canada’s premiers argue more federal funding is what’s needed to help their ailing health systems, but Ottawa says it wants to see better results from the billions already flowing to the provinces and territories for health care before increasing health transfers.
Lim says it’s time for the buck passing to stop and for all levels of government to focus on finding ways to ease pressures for health workers and patients alike.
“We're going to have to really have a serious conversation about health care and the amount of resources that are required and the amount of planning that's required,” he said.
“The sooner we can have an intelligent, comprehensive conversation around it, the better the solution will be.”
Possible fixes will be complex and need to involve short- and long-term plans, Carr added, including paying nurses more and lifting the freeze on nursing salaries in Ontario.
But long-term initiatives won’t help with the immediate pressures facing ERs in Canada, he said.
“Recognizing foreign-trained graduates and increasing class sizes for health-care professionals will help,” he said.
“But let's recall, this is not going to help this winter. And this winter is frightening both of us considerably.”
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