The Annual Accountability Report on Emergency Departments released by the province has revealed what health-care workers in Nova Scotia already know: emergency departments are being pushed to the limit.
The report takes a deeper dive into some of the problems the health sector has faced over the past few years.
“The emergency department problem has been around for a long time. But since the pandemic, it’s been considerably worse. And especially in the last few months with a significant rise in viral illnesses as well this fall,” said Leisha Hawker, a family doctor and president of Doctors Nova Scotia.
According to the report released Wednesday, between April 1, 2021, and March 31, 2022, there were 536,666 visits to emergency departments in the province.
The average ambulance offload time was 33.1 minutes.
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“Since March it’s actually gotten worse because staff shortages just continue. We see it in the ERs with the nursing profession because they’re short-staffed, and as a result, that means its longer wait times for our paramedics to offload our patients,” said Kevin MacMullin with International Union of Operating Engineers Local 727, which represents paramedics.
The report also found that during that reporting period, more than 43,000 people who visited emergency departments left without being seen by staff. The departments with the greatest number of patients who left without being seen were South Shore Regional at 15 per cent and Cape Breton Regional at 14.8 per cent.
Meanwhile, the average emergency department wait time from triage to care provider was 2.07 hours. The longest average wait time was at Sacred Heart Community Health Centre in Chéticamp at 6.17 hours.
The head of the nurses’ union says health-care workers are “doing the best they can with what they have.”
“Absolutely (the situation has) gotten worse,” said Janet Hazelton, the president of the Nova Scotia Nurses Union.
“We’re getting an exodus of nurses from emerg rooms. We know that some of our emerg departments are down 50 and 60 per cent. So that means 50 or 60 per cent of nurses that are supposed to be there, are not there.”
But Nova Scotia Health and Wellness Minister Michelle Thompson said she’s very hopeful there will be improvements to the report at this time next year.
“I’m encouraged. I know that this report is difficult and there are some spots for improvement, but I do feel that people are very engaged and involved,” she said.
“We are working very closely with front-line health-care workers to help us solve these problems, which is really important.”
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