A Kelowna doctor is one of several from around B.C. speaking out on a new website about overcrowding in emergency rooms and calling on the province for change.
Dr. David Rhine is an emergency room physician at Kelowna General Hospital. In December, he filmed a video blog on his iPhone describing his shift in the emergency room. In the video, Rhine says a 102-year-old woman was forced to wait 10 hours for care while another elderly man left because of wait times.
Rhine is not alone in his frustration. His video joins a dozen others on the website www.bcemergencycare.com, which launched at the end of February. The website is an initiative by the B.C. Medical Association, BCMA, Section of Emergency Medicine.
“We’ve been trying to connect to government, collaborate with government. After 2009, we couldn’t get anyone to answer the phone, to connect or work with us at all,” said Dr. David Haughton, president of the BCMA Section of Emergency Medicine.
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Haughton says the website was a last ditch resort to get the B.C. government to sit up and listen.
“We’ve been trying for six months to get a hold of the Minister of Health and the Ministry of Health and it was only in February when we found out they had really pulled back and abandoned all of the collaborations we had worked on up until 2009,” he said.
The B.C. Emergency Care website allows doctors to post videos venting their frustrations. It also allows residents to share their emergency room experiences.
“The government doesn’t want to listen to us. Maybe they’ll listen to patients,” Haughton said.
Rhine says the biggest issues at Kelowna General Hospital are overcrowding and access to beds in the emergency room.
On Thursday morning, Rhine says there were already 25 to 30 admitted patients in the emergency room. He says another five beds in the B.C. Ambulance waiting area were already full and it was only a matter of time before patients would begin spilling over into the hallway to wait for care and assessment.
“If your family member arrives ill with pneumonia or chest pain, they may have to wait. They don’t have the access to a bed or a location in the department in order to be assessed,” Rhine said.
Rhine says his blog and others on the website are meant to illustrate what doctors have to deal with on a daily basis.
The BCMA Section of Emergency Medicine has a five point plan that they believe will help with the issue of overcrowding in B.C. hospitals:
1. Increase physician staffing in ERs to reflect increased ER patient visits.
2. Make annual adjustments to ER physician staffing to ensure safe patient care.
3. Set and enforce standards regarding how long sick ER patients wait for an inpatient bed.
4. Continue and expand initiatives that will reduce the number of ER visits that could otherwise be served by other practitioners.
5. Hold administrators in Ministry of Health and Health Authorities accountable for meeting the standards set.
Haughton admits that the plan may cost taxpayers but he believes it’s a price that they will be willing to pay.
“I’m a taxpayer. Times are tough. On the other hand, if you’ve been waiting six months for surgery and you’re in excruciating pain or your toddler is having trouble breathing or your husband is having chest paint and looks a little grey, you’d think that money is the best possible way of spending money.”
B.C. Health Minister Margaret MacDiarmid says she met with the association a few weeks ago but does not think their funding request is feasible.
MacDiarmid says the association is asking for $10 million for emergency physicians.
“It takes away form other important initiatives that are going to address the exact problems the doctors are concerned about. Things like additional long term care beds, things like more home and community care,” she said.
But she emphasizes that she wants to keep on working with the group.
“They do incredibly important and valuable work and I acknowledge that. I’m absolutely committed to working with them in the future.”
Doctors from 26 of the province’s biggest hospitals are involved in the B.C. Emergency Care website.
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