New Brunswick’s Vitalité Health Network is implementing “exceptional measures’ at the Campbellton Regional Hospital as a result of an “unprecedented” patient overload and a shortage of staff.
As part of those measures, the hospital’s obstetrics, surgical and outpatient clinics will be closed until further notice.
Vitalité Health Network said that “for a number weeks” the facility has been exceeding its capacity of 145 acute care beds by as much as 40 patients.
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Approximately 70 beds are being occupied by patients who no longer need to be hospitalized but who have no choice but to remain in the hospital while awaiting the care they need.
“There is no more room in the hospital and our ability to provide safe and high-quality care is being compromised,” Gilles Lanteigne, president and CEO of Vitalité, said in a statement announcing the measures.
“Our staff and physicians are working very hard but we have exhausted all other options to resolve the situation. We thus have no choice but to take a series of exceptional measures.”
Anyone who had appointments with the affected departments will be contacted and informed of the options available to them.
Health Minister Ted Flemming met with Liberal MLAs and critics after the sitting of the legislature on Thursday in an attempt to find some short-term solutions.
Flemming said the issues ultimately come down to staffing.
“It’s a staffing issue. You can produce a bed and a room but if you don’t have people to carry out the care then you don’t have much of a facility,” he said.
Vitalité said other measures include ambulances possibly being diverted to other hospital facilities and no direct admissions by physicians in the surrounding communities.
The health network said it is aware of the inconvenience and concerns that “may result from this series of measures.”
“This is an extremely urgent situation and drastic measures must be taken to bring the number of patients at the Campbellton Regional Hospital to a more acceptable level,” said Dr. France Desrosiers, Vitalité’s vice-president of medical services, training and research.
“Everyone working together – including nursing staff, health professionals, physicians, health system managers and the people of the community – will allow us to navigate this emergency situation.”
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The health network is encouraging anyone with non-urgent cases to ask the public to see a doctor at a walk-in clinic or to make an appointment with their family doctor or nurse practitioner.
Flemming said the government will be looking at long-term solutions to staffing shortages, including centralizing some services.
With files from Silas Brown