As emergency department resources are stretched to their limits across the country, occupancy rates in Nova Scotia hospitals are no different — with some saying the wait times are the worst they’ve seen in recent years.
Janet Hazelton, president of the Nova Scotia Nurses Union, said some hospitals throughout the province witnessed a near-double increase in patients seeking care during the holiday season.
“This is no different than any other year, except the volumes are significantly increased,” she said in an interview on Friday.
“The message I’m getting from my nurses is that it’s exacerbated and there’s way more people waiting, and they’re waiting a lot longer to be seen.”
Data from the Nova Scotia Action for Health Public Recording website showed that hospitals throughout the province had an average occupancy of 99.8 per cent on Thursday, with acute care units nearing 107 per cent. The most stretched was the Bayview Memorial Health Centre in Cumberland County, which saw a staggering occupancy rate of 333 per cent.
Acute care units at the QEII Health Sciences Centre, which includes the Halifax Infirmary, were at 102 per cent occupancy as of Thursday afternoon. The Dartmouth general was even busier, being reported at 121 per cent.
Acute care beds are defined as inpatient beds used for medical, surgical, and intensive care nursing services.
Hazelton said nurses are “very frustrated” with the current working conditions that are causing patients to wait even lengthier periods than usual.
“They understand that there’s no resolution necessarily to it, but it still doesn’t feel good,” she continued. “They don’t feel good about not being able to give the best care they can … it doesn’t make it any easier to work in that situation.”
Brett Macdougall, vice president of Nova Scotia Health’s Eastern Zone, said an uptick in respiratory illnesses hasn’t helped the problem.
“Respiratory illness is one of the bigger factors in what we’re currently seeing as a surge in overcrowding and that impacts our emergency departments,” said Macdougall, whose region contains the Cape Breton Regional Hospital where wait times on Saturday are estimated to be between seven to nine hours.
“With that, we’re seeing an impact with some staffing … so that altogether impacts our ability to admit newly admitted patients to our hospital beds and that creates a backlog and pressure in our emergency departments.”
Macdougall said the hospital in Cape Breton is “over 100 per cent capacity.”
“People are waiting longer than we’d like and our teams have been dealing with the surge all week long.”
Macdougall added that leaders across the province will be meeting throughout the weekend to assess the “state of affairs” regarding bed capacity and determine the best approach heading into next week.
Longest wait times in Canada
Wait times at emergency departments aren’t a new phenomenon for Nova Scotia residents.
According to a report published by the Fraser Institute in December, the wait times patients in Nova Scotia experience between receiving a referral from a general practitioner and the date of their treatment is the longest out of any province in the country — reported at an average of 56.7 weeks.
“In 2023, physicians report a median wait time of 27.7 weeks,” the report determined as the average for all of Canada. That number alone represented the longest delay in the survey’s history and is 198 per cent longer than patients were expected to wait in 1993.
Ontario reported the shortest waits, currently sitting around 21 weeks.
In a December interview with Global News, Sandra Mullen, president of the Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union, said Nova Scotia’s reliance on travel nurses — nurses who are hired through private agencies for short-term placements — has contributed to these significant shortages, as these nurses have more schedule flexibility and are away during the Christmas holiday.
“Today, what should be 17 (nurses) on the floor is down to nine during the day shift,” she said in an interview on Dec. 21, where she mentioned that staff were anticipating “extreme shortages” at the time.
Hazelton said due to a large chunk of the province’s population still without a family doctor, many residents have no choice but to visit emergency facilities to receive medical treatment — increasing the workload for an already short-staffed hospital crew.
“Unfortunately, they have to seek their medical attention in our emergency departments. Although strep throat or an earache may not seem like an emergency … if you don’t have a family practitioner, the only recourse that people have is to go (to the ER),” she said.
She said a new contract between nurses and the provincial government, plans to decrease reliance on travel nurses, and the introduction of mobile care clinics are several initiatives that could eventually ease the overwhelming workload.
“I think introducing nurse practitioners in our emergency departments, nurses prescribing in our emergency departments, which is a new thing, that’s another initiative so that you won’t have to wait hours to get an antibiotic. Hopefully, some of these initiatives will help with these extremely long wait times.”
Despite the overcrowding in Nova Scotia hospitals, Hazelton said she doesn’t want this to discourage those who require serious medical treatment from visiting an emergency department.
“If you have chest pain, if you’re short of breath … you don’t unfortunately have a choice. You need to go (to the ER) but you need to understand you’ll be there for a while. You shouldn’t leave without being seen unless you’re confident that you can wait,” she continued, adding that nurses determine during the triage phase whether someone needs to be seen immediately or if they can wait.
“If you require treatment, it will happen. It just may take some time,” she said.