The emergency department at the Campbellton Regional Hospital has resumed full service only days after the regional health authority instituted “exceptional measures” to deal with “extreme patient overload.”
The Vitalité Health Network announced on Sunday that residents of the Restigouche region can now present themselves at the ER to see a doctor.
“However, the Emergency Department is still open, but the Network asks the public to use it wisely,” Vitalité wrote in a press release.
READ MORE: ‘Exceptional measures’ at Campbellton Regional Hospital after ‘unprecedented’ patient overload
On Thursday, the network said that for “a number of weeks” the facility had been exceeding its capacity of 145 acute care beds by as much as 40 patients.
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.”
The measures included possibly diverting ambulances to other hospital facilities and no direct admissions by physicians in the surrounding communities.
Health Minister Ted Flemming said the issues at the Campbellton Regional Hospital came down to staffing at the government will be looking at long-term solutions to staffing shortages, including centralizing some services.
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