Some 1,400 patients died in Quebec’s emergency rooms last year because there were no rooms available in other wards.
Health Minister Christian Dubé is calling the situation unacceptable.
Dubé blamed the stark lack of hospital beds on the COVID-19 pandemic and the labour shortage.
In a written statement to Global News, the minister’s press secretary said Dubé is carefully monitoring the situation in the 25 ERs in the poorest condition.
Last year, 1,400 patients died on stretchers in ERs while waiting to be transferred to a ward. That’s a 28-per cent increase over 2020 and the worst in the last five years.
This doesn’t mean patients were dying in hallways, said Judy Morris, the president of the emergency doctors association, but it’s a major red flag.
Morris said it’s an indicator that patients are not getting the ideal care they need.
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“The problem is we sometimes cannot direct those patients to those wards and they end up staying in the ER. They end up receiving their care in the ER, in an environment with noise almost 24/7, with lights and with less room, hallways and less comfortable stretchers than real hospital beds,” she explained.
Dr. Morris said that ideally no one should stay more than 24 hours in the emergency room.
A patients’ rights advocate says one problem is that many elderly people end up in the ERs, but they should be getting care elsewhere.
“Most of these elders are either waiting for a bed in a long-term facility, or not treated medically or with nursing care at home,” said Paul Brunet, president of the Council for the Protection of Patients.