‘We need to declare a state of emergency’: Doctors sound alarm over hospital wait times

Long waits and crowded rooms punctuate the province's health centres, and doctors say our emergency departments are in crisis mode.

Alberta hospital staff are calling for the province to declare a state of emergency as wait times balloon and capacity concerns grow louder.

The request comes two weeks after the much-publicized death of an Edmonton man who spent eight hours in the emergency room at the Grey Nuns Community Hospital.

Physicians say his situation is far from unique.

“Frequently, we have people in 10-out-of-10 abdominal pain with no pain medication, no comfort and nowhere to sit for 12 hours in our emergency department because we can’t get them in,” Dr. Paul Parks said.

“If you’re lucky, you eventually get a room that was supposed to have two patients but has four in it with maybe one bathroom.

“Our entire province’s health-care system is in crisis. We need to declare a state of emergency.”

Parks is one of three workers from three hospitals who told CTV News on Thursday immediate action is needed.

If a state of emergency is declared by the province, it would allow for temporary measures that might improve the health system.

Parks believes the biggest tool in that kit would be the allocation of emergency funding.

He’d also like to see load-levelling, which would allow patients to be transferred out of busy centres and into facilities that can handle them in a timely manner.

Right now, urban centres Calgary and Edmonton are experiencing the worst of the problems.

“Nobody is taking leadership, and no one is out there saying, ‘We understand it’s a crisis; we are going to intervene to help our team save the lives of critically ill Albertans,’” Parks said.

“That’s what we’re pleading for.

“How many more patients have to die in our waiting room before they step up and show some leadership?”

Wait times over a 24-hour stretch beginning on Wednesday were noticeably high.

At different periods, Alberta Health Services showed a five-hour-and-40-minute queue at the Rockyview General Hospital, an eight-hour-and-20-minute line at the South Health Campus and a 10-and-a-half-hour wait at the Peter Lougheed Centre.

The Alberta Children’s Hospital consistently has the lowest wait times in Calgary, but staff there are still concerned with the situation.

“Right now, we’re at 130 per cent over capacity,” Dr. Sidd Thakore said.

“Generally, we have single rooms at the Children’s Hospital and four people who are admitted (to them). We started doubling up rooms now—and most of the different floors of the units—to handle the increased patient load.”

At least five non-emergent surgeries were postponed this week in the province due to capacity challenges.

Calgarian Jon Henn waited three days to get emergency care at the Peter Lougheed Centre.

He says he was lucky to have a chair and not be left in a hallway, like some others he saw.

“It just seemed like they didn’t have places to put people, and all of the upstairs units were full,” Henn said.

“That just caused massive backlogs downstairs.”

Doctors say rapid population growth and underfunding are two major issues so far this year.

An especially tough flu season isn’t helping matters.

But those overflowing rooms existed long before this strain of influenza, according to those CTV News talked to.

“We were already at 110 per cent capacity or more before we had our seasonal variation,” Parks said.

“If you hear anyone say this is just the flu, it’s absolutely not. The flu has just made things much, much worse.”

The province responds

Hospital and Surgical Health Services Minister Matt Jones denied a CTV News interview request to discuss the problems.

Instead, the ministry sent a statement reading, in part, “We acknowledge that long emergency department wait times remain a serious concern. Like other provinces, Alberta is experiencing higher patient volumes due to respiratory virus season. An early and unusually large flu spike in mid-December added pressure to hospitals with more patients requiring care and hospitalization.”

The statement continued, “We are cautiously optimistic that demand may ease as cases in the community stabilize, especially in Calgary and Edmonton, but hospitals will remain busy throughout the season.”

According to the statement, the province is working with Acute Care Alberta and health-care providers to “co-ordinate provincially, regionally and locally, so that resources are available where and when they’re needed.”

It points to recent investments to add new continuing-care spaces and acute-care beds.

“We will continue to monitor system pressures closely and work with health system partners to respond to challenges as they arise and manage access to care across Alberta.”