Overcrowding at hospital Liberals’ fault, NDP says
Patients have been raising concerns about misdiagnosis at Abbotsford hospital because the staff are stretched far too thin.
The NDP went after the government in the B.C. legislature on Tuesday, charging that overcrowding in Abbotsford’s hospital is dangerous.
NDP critics cited Postmedia’s recent report that doctors in the hospital say patients are being warehoused in the emergency department.
“How has this health minister let this situation in Abbotsford deteriorate so badly that patients with life-threatening problems now have to compete for their treatment?” NDP MLA Jodie Wickens asked Health Minister Terry Lake during question period.
Lake said staff at the hospital are doing a good job at reducing hospital congestion, and winter is a busy time for all B.C. hospitals.
Postmedia reported Saturday that overcrowding in the hospital’s ER raises the question of whether some people are turned away by ER staff pressured to quickly judge whether arriving patients need emergency care or not.
“Because of the volume of patients that are in the ER taking up valuable stretcher space, when you come in with an acute lifethreatening problem, there will be competition for the space that you need,” an Abbotsford doctor told Postmedia last week.
The doctor stressed that overcrowding couldn’t be linked to patient deaths at the hospital. But the doctor said that ER overcrowding increases risks and the chances that doctors could make mistakes in judgment.
NDP critics pointed to patient death cases at the Abbotsford hospital cited in Postmedia’s report.
After the February deaths of Nimrat Gill, 3, and Mary Louise Murphy, 56, families have questioned whether their loved ones waited too long to see ER doctors in Abbotsford and were dis- charged too quickly, with doctors failing to diagnose life-threatening illnesses.
“Patients have been raising concerns about misdiagnosis at Abbotsford hospital because the staff are stretched far too thin,” Wickens said in legislature Tuesday.
But Lake pointed to Fraser Health figures, saying they show “90 per cent of patients at Abbotsford Regional Hospital are seen by a physician in less than 2.5 hours … lower than the B.C. average.”
“I want to make it clear that the physician the member is quoting has been very clear not to link any deaths to the fact that they are very busy at Abbotsford Regional Hospital, and at other hospitals around the province at this time of year,” Lake said.
NDP MLA Jennifer Rice, however, cited different figures from Fraser Health.
Rice said they show waiting times in Abbotsford are getting worse.
“In September of 2014, 66 per cent of patients waited more than 10 hours in Abbotsford’s ER for admission to hospital. Fast-forward two years. That percentage is 70,” Rice said. “To the health minister: Why has this government let congestion get worse at one of B.C.’s critical regional hospitals?”
A doctor in Abbotsford has told Postmedia that key measures of overcrowding in the hospital ER are getting worse.
“The cause is a lack of commitment to solutions that distribute that load throughout the hospital,” the Abbotsford doctor said.
The doctor pointed to documents showing that an expert panel on hospital crowding was convened by the Ministry of Health in 2009.
The panel of physicians, researchers and health authority administrators recommended that health authorities spread the load of excess patients to areas outside the ER.
But Fraser Health has not taken actions suggested by the experts, the doctor said.
“The key issue identified by the panel is admitted patients remaining in (emergency department) stretchers while waiting for in-patient beds,” the panel’s June 2009 report said.
It said the emergency department shouldn’t be the default area to care for patients when the rest of the hospital is full.
The ministry did not respond to questions about the expert panel’s recommendations.
Patients have been raising concerns about misdiagnosis at Abbotsford hospital because the staff are stretched far too thin.