Quebec ERs at overcapacity, healthcare workers sounding the alarm

“We know that ERs are overcrowded I think people don’t realize the magnitude and they don’t realize how potentially dangerous those situations are for the patients,” said Judy Morris, president, association des médecins d’urgence du québec.

Quebec emergency rooms are severally at overcapacity and healthcare workers are sounding the alarm. In Montreal in the past 10 days – hospitals have been at 113 per cent capacity – the Montreal general hospital and the Douglas Mental Health Institute at over 165 per cent  and staff can’t keep up.

“Now, there are casualties of this situation. We hear stories of delays, of treatment, of patients being taken care of with a heart attack and almost in the waiting room. We see significant delays and significant difficulties to give adequate care to patients that walk in through the door because some of the emergency rooms in the greater Montreal area are so overcrowded and the staff there is just overworked,” she said.

There has been a cocktail of viruses going around like the COVID-19, Influenza and RSV but the problem experts say aren’t the illnesses.

“There hasn’t been that many more visits than we’ve had in the past. And this time of year. Yes, some of the viruses, we still have COVID cases that walk through our doors and some of them need to be hospitalized because they have other health issues so we do see that. But it’s not a huge number of patients increase. It’s not an increase in numbers. What we do see, though, is the system overall is not able to answer to what’s required. So there’s still huge waits for you know, home care. There’s still not enough space for long-term care, other facilities of likes of safety issue. So there’s not enough beds open in the hospital. A lot of that is linked to shortage of personnel, unfortunately,” said Dr. Morris.

The Canadian association of emergency physicians wrote a letter to health ministers and premiers calling for a shared national strategy saying, “there needs to be a focused investment in primary care instead of episodic hospital care as a first response. A focused investment to train, educate and incentivize workers, investing in care for the elderly, and investment to improve capacity for acute care for the most seriously ill.”

Quebec came out with a strategy plan to reduce the strain on ERs – but Dr. Judy Morris says many hospitals have yet to implement them. Dr. Morris, encouraging Quebecers to keep themselves and others safe in order to help the system avoid collapse.

Dr. Morris added, “people should make sure they’re up to date with their vaccination, with their vaccines and with their flu shot, because influenza has been really bad this year. It brought a lot of patients to the emergency rooms and hospital.”