Doctors are sounding the alarm about overcrowding, capping any new admissions and long emergency department waits at several Edmonton hospitals.
Emergency physician and Alberta Medical Association president Dr. Paul Parks said the Grey Nuns Hospital “has been capped for weeks” and the Royal Alexandra Hospital “has had to resort to capping.”
In a message shared on social media, Parks said capacity is at 150 per cent (“150 patients in a space designed and staffed for 100 patients”) and he says they can’t take in one additional patient because it would be unsafe.
Parks said two of the four major hospitals in Edmonton are “completely full… with overcapacity space maximized.”
“Situation truly critical,” he wrote on Tuesday.
Another doctor, Neeja Bakshi, says the health-care crisis means patients are in ER waiting rooms for as long as 36 hours, “subjected to procedures and patient care in the middle of the hallway with no privacy or dignity.”
People who were waiting at the Royal Alex emergency department told Global News they had already been waiting for more than 10 hours.
An ambulance left Euart McEwan’s home with his wife Sharon at 10 p.m. Monday, he said, and she was still waiting in the ER Tuesday afternoon.
“She’s still sitting in the waiting room right now,” he said.
“It’s real frustrating… I’m very upset that they can’t put her someplace.”
McEwan said Sharon was in the hospital about a month ago when she had surgery. Now, he said her IV for antibiotics is leaking.
“It could be very dangerous,” he said. “They haven’t told me a thing.”
Maia Klougher said after being triaged, she waited about 11 hours to be treated.
“It was an 11-hour wait. Overly crowded, probably people waiting way longer than me as well,” she said. “It was pretty rough.
“Definitely frustrated at the whole system, really. It seems really bad that that would happen.”
She said she’s been in the Royal Alex ER a couple times and waited “about the same” amount of time to receive care.
“Very frustrated, very tired. Even the nurses are frustrated as well.”
Global News has reached out to Alberta Health Services for comment.
Health Minister Adriana LaGrange has said the Alberta government is fundamentally restructuring health care because the system “is not working.”
“Any Albertan who has gone to a hospital or to a clinic and had to endure the long wait times and not had access and not have quality care knows that we need to do something differently,” LaGrange told the house during question period Monday.
“The average Albertan cannot get in to see a family physician when they need to.
“What’s happening right now is not working, so we are committed to improving the system.”
Premier Danielle Smith’s government has promised to introduce in the current fall sitting a plan to decentralize Alberta Health Services that will deliver more decision-making and accountability to regions.
— with files from Slav Kornik, Global News, and The Canadian Press