18,000 patients leave ER without seeing doctor

Last year, more than 18,000 people entered Saskatchewan hospital emergency rooms, only to turn around and leave again without being seen by a physician.

Brandishing those numbers during question period Tuesday, the Opposition said people are leaving because of long wait times — an issue on which it has hammered the provincial government during the legislative session.

NDP leader Cam Broten criticized Premier Brad Wall for trying to “grab a big headline” with his 2012 commitment to zero wait times in emergency rooms, saying, “When you look four years later at what the stats show, you see things are the same, or maybe getting worse.”

It’s not just the numbers that bother Broten, it’s what they represent: Patients “going home in pain, going home with uncertainty about whether or not something is wrong, going home and possibly self-medicating and taking steps that aren’t healthy and could have deadly consequences — that’s what this is about.”

Health Minister Dustin Duncan said while “it’s a concern when anybody leaves without service,” it’s important to find out “who these people are, why they’re leaving and is there another way to provide service?”

That boils down to consistent data collection across health regions — something Duncan admits has been lacking in recent years.

“If we’re not collecting data in the same way, it’s useless information,” he said.

Health officials from across the province are meeting this week, and Duncan said “wait times are high up on their list” of issues to discuss.

The minister said the government is making some progress, particularly in the Regina Qu’Appelle Health Region, where a triage program has trimmed wait times.

Now it’s a matter of sharing that information across the province, while looking at each region’s “unique circumstance, and tailoring” programs to local challenges.

Broten said the thousands of people walking out of emergency rooms were proof that the government’s current approach “is not working.”

The first step, he said, was to cut programs that aren’t working, like lean.

“We have a history of doing things in a smart way (in Saskatchewan), and finding solutions,” Broten said.