Hospital admission wait times triple in three years
Number of people stacking up in ERs has tripled, according to AHS data
The number of patients in Calgary emergency rooms waiting for a hospital bed has tripled over three years, says a senior Alberta Health Services official.
The average number of people waiting to be admitted in the ER at Foothills Medical Centre on an hourly basis has grown from six in January-March 2013 to 18 in the same time frame in 2016, according to Alberta Health Services data.
At Peter Lougheed Centre and Rockyview General Hospital, those numbers grew from four to 13 and five to 14, respectively.
Edmonton hospitals have also seen increases, some of them dramatic.
At the same time, the average waits for patients in Calgary emergency rooms rose from 19 hours in 2012 to 28 hours in 2015-16, notes Dr. Eddy Lang, Calgary zone clinical department head.
“The number of patients we are holding onto, waiting for a bed upstairs is climbing at the Foothills,” said Lang.
“It’s not because the food’s so bad upstairs, it’s because of capacity issues … we’re holding on to an inordinately large number of patients in the ER.”
He said 10 per cent of those patients are waiting for over 43 hours to be admitted.
“Even though they’ve got designated special places for patients up in the wards, that’s not very humane when they’re waiting in all the noise and commotion of the ER,” said Lang.
At the same time, he said patients admitted for further acute care should be making way for those requiring ER service.
“We should be able to move these people into a room because it’s not their place, it’s for emergency people coming in,” he said.
The reason for the gridlock is one that’s bedevilled Alberta’s medical system for years — patients who should be in long-term care are taking up space in hospitals, said Lang.
Despite the concerns, he said, AHS has worked diligently using a variety of strategies to reduce those numbers, including redirecting patients away from hospitals.
The number of ER visits in Calgary shot up from 248,000 in 2012 to around 300,000 the following year — a number that’s held steady.
From 2012 to 2016, the number of patients brought to ER by ambulance went from 59,000 to 75,000.
“Given those pressures, we’re doing pretty well, particularly when measured against the rest of the country,” said Lang.
Opening up more long-term care beds is something that’s been proceeding, while the AHS has also been encouraging patients to visit clinics or family doctors to ease the pressure on ERs.
Progress, he said, is being made in ensuring EMS personnel are back on the road within 90 minutes of their arrival, something Calgary hospitals are managing to do 80 per cent of the time.
The ER backlog issue is one the current NDP government inherited from the PCs, but the current government hasn’t moved on it enough to break the jam, said Alberta Liberal Leader Dr. David Swann.
“Long-term care beds aren’t being built quickly enough and there’s too much privatized care, so people aren’t able to afford it,” said the former family physician.
“There’s a real lack of investment and prevention in this province, so we’re continuing to deal with this emergency care backlog.”
Not enough has been done, he said, in providing 1,000 new acute care beds in the province’s hospitals.
He applauded the AHS bid to see more patients use physician care in the community rather than ERs.
But Swann said extended physician and clinic hours are also needed to relieve the pressure on hospitals.
It’s not because the food’s so bad upstairs … We’re holding on to an inordinately large number of patients in the ER.