Hospital ERS suffer summertime crush

Montreal emergency rooms are swamped much more than usual for this time of the year, suggesting that the current heat wave might be partly to blame.

Hospital staff going on their summer vacations is also a likely contributing factor to the ER overcrowding.

The ER at St. Mary’s Hospital had twice as many patients as it could handle by 10 a.m. Tuesday, up from 173 per cent of capacity the day before. The Jewish General Hospital’s ER occupancy rate jumped to 175 per cent, from 119 per cent on Monday.

To put those numbers in context, an ER occupancy rate of 120 per cent is not considered medically acceptable. Patients who need to be admitted to the hospital for various ailments end up being treated in corridors with little privacy. Some patients sit and lie on stretchers for more than 48 hours.

At St. Mary’s, 13 patients were stuck in the ER for more than 24 hours, and four for longer than two days.

“An occupancy rate of 200 per cent is unusual for this time of the year,” said hospital spokesperson Alex Fretier.

St. Mary’s, like the Jewish General, treats a high percentage of elderly patients, who are more susceptible to heat-related illnesses.

However, Fretier noted there hasn’t been an increase in the number of patients suffering from heat exhaustion or asthma attacks.

“It’s a mix of factors,” he said, although he said he couldn’t elaborate on what those might be.

Astrid Morin, a public-relations official with the Jewish General, said she, too, “did not know of the reason for the spike” in ER overcrowding.

What is known, though, is that hospital staff across the city are on vacation at this time of the year, putting pressure on an already overburdened system.

The ER domino effect unfolds in the following manner: Nurses take care of patients in wards across the hospital, and ideally, there should be enough staff to admit ER patients. However, if there are not enough nurses throughout the hospital, some beds stay empty and patients in the ER cannot be admitted to the wards. The ER personnel have no choice but to treat these patients in corridors.

Other hospital ERs that are overloaded include Notre Dame, the Lakeshore General and Jean Talon. Surprisingly, some hospitals ERs are below capacity, including the Montreal General, LaSalle and Lachine.