Long waits in Alberta emergency rooms have been an issue for years and now there’s concern it’s deterring patients from sticking around to get the care they need.
Emergency physicians say wait times can regularly be more than seven hours and that’s prompting people to leave.
As respiratory virus season kicks into high gear, that is expected to just get worse as people flood hospitals with severe symptoms from COVID-19, influenza and RSV.
“Every fall we’re really bad and this year we’re as bad as ever,” said Dr. Arun Abbi, an emergency medicine physician at the Peter Lougheed and Foothills hospitals in Calgary.
Abbi says it’s a storm of issues. There’s a nursing shortage that limits capacity, plus a lack of family doctors that means patients are seeking care at emergency instead of a clinic, plus there are not as many beds are available overall due to respiratory illnesses.
“Current nights are really a grind because sometimes — like the other night — we had 60 people waiting to be seen and it’s almost impossible to get through that number, to even get caught up,” he said.
“You feel bad because you see everyone waiting and you’re trying to move, but you can only see so many people.”
The lack of primary care in Alberta is so bad, Abbi said, ER doctors are diagnosing serious illnesses like cancer and seeing older patients with complex medical needs. Mental health is also a serious issue.
“To be honest, we’re probably usually holding five or six psychiatric patients for a couple of days at a time, just waiting to go upstairs. So mental health cost is a huge issue as well,” he said.
Abbi worries potential COVID-19 outbreaks on hospital wards could compound the issues.
“I worry by Halloween we could be in worse shape than we are now.”
Alberta’s ER wait times are getting national attention. On Friday during question period in the House of Commons, NDP Edmonton Strathcona MP Heather McPherson called on the federal government to take action.
“This summer, 11 emergency rooms in Alberta closed due to the shortage of health-care workers,” she said. “And today, we learned that some Canadians are being forced to leave overcrowded emergency rooms without treatment due to no staff. The Liberals and the Conservatives have failed to protect Canadians.”
Edmonton resident William Anderson is living with a brain injury. Last month, he suddenly passed out while swimming at the Jamie Platz YMCA in west Edmonton and was rushed the University of Alberta Hospital in an ambulance. But once there, he said the rush slowed to a crawl.
“They just left me (hooked) to the machine, while the machine tracked my and my heartbeat and they weren’t really communicating very well,” he said.
Anderson said he waited in triage for more than seven hours, without medications he normally takes to function. He didn’t leave until 14 hours later. As he waited, Anderson said he saw people give up on their wait and leave.
“They wouldn’t let me leave until until I saw a doctor. But it took hours,” he said.
Anderson’s story is not isolated. He’s worried about the next time he may have to go to the emergency department.
“Emergency should be moving faster than what they are, but they’re understaffed and we need to get that fixed,” he said.
While some people leave, Dr. Abbi hopes patents wait it out.
“We’re just so busy that sometimes we are falling behind — but it’s not that we’re not trying to help. We’re trying to see everyone.
“We want to see everybody we can. We just have limited resources.”
Global News reached out to Alberta Health Services and the Ministry of Health.
“AHS is always concerned when a patient leaves an emergency department without being seen by a physician,” Alberta Health Services spokesperson Kerry Williamson said. “Patients should never leave without consulting with emergency department staff first.”
AHS said recent data from the Health Quality Council of Alberta shows that the number of patients who left major urban EDs without being seen has fallen since last year.
Williamson cited data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information saying the total length of stay in an Alberta emergency department for admitted patients was significantly lower compared with Ontario, B.C and Quebec.
“It is important to note that patients who are waiting in the emergency department are still being carefully looked after by our ED teams. During that time, patients may receive pain medication, be seen by a nurse or other care provider, or undergo one or more laboratory tests or radiology procedures (for example, an x-ray),” AHS added.
“Critically ill or injured patients will always be seen quickly.”
As of publishing, the province had not issued a reply.