Edmonton emergency departments struggle to keep up with increased patient numbers | CBC News
Alberta Health Services has been using mass casualty stretchers to help capacity issues as Edmonton paramedics face increased workloads, according to an internal email obtained by CBC News.
EMS volumes are “relatively consistent,” but the ability to move patients through the system has created “higher-than-normal” demand on front-line paramedics, said an email from Jeremy Olfert, an Edmonton Zone EMS operations associate executive.
AHS sent stretchers to the “five major sites” in the Edmonton health zone, to help paramedics return to service and community coverage, Olfert said.
“The deployment of these stretchers will help address the low availability we have seen across the sites,” Olfert said.
“It is also important to note that while these stretchers may be stored in the ambulance bays at some facilities, patient care will occur within the hospital site.”
AHS continues to take steps to temporarily grow hospital capacity, such as creating overcapacity spaces and discharging patients more quickly, an agency spokesperson told CBC.
“Additional stretchers were put in place in Edmonton hospitals as a precautionary measure on Feb. 26 but, to date, they have not been needed to manage patient volumes,” the spokesperson said, noting that patient volumes at Edmonton emergency departments remain above average.
Watch | How Alberta Health Services is dealing with Edmonton emergency room capacity:
Estimated emergency room times are hovering between six and nine hours in some Edmonton area hospitals. Alberta Health Services says patient volumes are above average. As CBC’s Travis McEwan reports, the agency has prepared temporary precautions, like stretchers for extra beds.
The University of Alberta Hospital, for example, reorganized care and service delivery in one of its outpatient units, which allowed for more beds, the spokesperson said.
This tactic, which is “not uncommonly used during periods of high patient volumes,” led to the opening of nine new beds at the end of February. They are staffed by emergency department workers, the spokesperson said.
Estimated emergency department wait times in Edmonton range anywhere from three hours to more than seven hours, according to the AHS website.
Health Minister Adriana LaGrange and Infrastructure Minister Martin Long are expected to announce plans Thursday to increase funding for acute care capacity.
‘Limited bed base’
Finding bed spaces has proven to be challenging, said Dr. Darren Markland, an intensive care physician and a nephrologist at Edmonton’s Royal Alexandra Hospital.
“We have a limited bed base, which we’re always juggling,” Markland said.
The juggling act occurs in part because the hospital fills up in other places — most often the emergency department, he said, adding that many of the patients taking space “don’t need to be there.”
“All of a sudden, our bed managers have to literally start shuffling patients,” he said.
Ultimately, issues in Alberta health care are systematic, Markland said, adding that resources are being redirected from public health care to private.
He says private surgical facilities draw resources from acute care and help non-emergent patients, while “strangling primary care, which is supposed to prevent people from getting sick in the first place.”
Combined, those factors add up to leaving people with no other place to go than the hospital, he said.
