Parents with sick kids shouldn’t be deterred by ER overcrowding, doc says
The respiratory viruses that trigger COVID-19, RSV diseases and influenza proceed to flow into on P.E.I., notably amongst youngsters.
And whereas emergency rooms on the Island proceed to take care of overcrowding and lengthy waits, Dr. Trevor Jain says that should not cease involved dad and mom from taking their youngsters to the hospital.
“We do not just like the messaging of ‘If you happen to’re not in an acute disaster or having an emergency, don’t come to the emergency division,'” stated Jain, who works at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Charlottetown and speaks on behalf of the Canadian Affiliation of Emergency Physicians.
“I do not suppose it is truthful to place the onus on dad and mom to determine whether or not their children have an emergency or not. If they cannot entry a walk-in clinic, do not have a household physician, or cannot get into their household physician as a result of their household physician’s workplaces are absolutely booked, then the place else are they to go?”
Till we resolve our admitted-patient points within the emergency departments from coast to coast to coast, we’re nonetheless going to have emergency division overcrowding.— Dr. Trevor Jain
Nevertheless, Jain stated a wait is probably going unavoidable.
On a latest shift on the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Charlottetown, 31 out of the 32 beds within the ER had been full — and one other 47 folks had been within the ready room, he stated.
As soon as assessed, a few of them needed to wait as much as 110 hours — or 5 days — for a mattress in a hospital unit.
Jain stated he does not suppose acute care sufferers are inflicting the lengthy waits at ERs.
“We all know that these sufferers truly don’t contribute to overcrowding. It is sufferers which can be admitted that keep boarded within the emergency division, that may’t get to the ground,” he stated.
“Till we resolve our admitted-patient points within the emergency departments from coast to coast to coast, we’re nonetheless going to have emergency division overcrowding.”
