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SYDNEY, N.S. — Blame it on the holidays.

Exceptionally high numbers of patients showing up in the Cape Breton Regional Hospital’s emergency department over the past few weeks is being partially attributed to the holiday season and local doctors taking extra time off during the holiday season.

“There’s probably a variety of different factors but some of the main factors are temporary emergency department closures at community hospitals and some patients have either no or limited access to family physicians and primary care providers, especially during the holidays. Those that do have primary health-care providers may not be able to access them either because those physician offices could be closed,” says Greg Boone, director of issues management for the Nova Scotia Health Authority, adding that some are heading to the emergency room for problems that need help but may not be considered life-threatening.

Boone says more people started coming to the emergency department at the start of the holiday season and it still hasn’t slowed down. In fact, the volumes have been growing and he says there’s no way to predict when the numbers may start to decline again.

Greg Boone

While the emergency department at the Cape Breton Regional Hospital typically sees about 120 to 130 patients each day, recent numbers have been averaging 140 to 160 patients each day over the past few weeks with a high of 166 on one day recently. Unfortunately for patients, it’s resulting in longer waits to get medical care.

“When the volumes are high, waits can be up to 10 hours for some patients,” Boone confirmed, adding that the patients who have to wait the longest are the ones with the least life-threatening conditions.

And then there’s the problem of where to put everyone who’s being treated. According to one doctor’s Facebook posting from this weekend past, patients could be found in beds lining the hallways of the facility and washrooms were used to perform assessments.

“What we have done to deal with it is that in the highest volume time periods we’ve been able to do in the last couple of days we’ve identified other clinical space just outside the Emergency Department that we could use for less than non-urgent patients to try and fast track some of those patients through for assessment and treatment,” says Boone. “We’ve used vacant ambulatory care space on the weekend for patients on stretchers who needed further followup who were being detained for a period of time to determine the level of care they would need or if they would be discharged. Where possible we bring in extra staff — that’s not always possible but we try to find or identify extra staff to help add to the shift as well but that’s clearly a challenge.”

It’s not ideal but Boone says staff are doing their best to handle the present situation.

“We regret that people are experiencing longer waits than usual and we’re sorry for that but our staff is doing everything they can to try to see and treat as many people as efficiently as they can but also understanding that the sickest people need to be cared for first,” says Boone.

Boone is hopeful as doctors return to work after the holiday season that the waits may start to subside.

“It’s a complex situation — it can’t just be solved with one thing only.”

Related:

• Report outlines challenges facing emergency departments

• Health authority officials say they’re looking at Cape Breton hospitals’ mortality rate



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