About sixty doctors in the emergency room request the opening of hospital beds rather than partial closure during the summer. They believe the quality of care has been compromised, some deaths have even been caused by the chaotic situation in the emergency room.
At a press meeting at the end of last April, Assistant Deputy Minister of Health Lucie Opatrny said she hoped health establishments would be able to provide summer vacation to hospital staff.
Obviously, we also need to balance that with the desire that we enhance activities to keep up with all the different sectors where there is some catching up to be done., he says. One thinks, for example, of waiting lists for surgery.
But, as the summer holidays are just beginning, the medical chiefs responsible for emergency services at Quebec hospitals are expressing their concerns about not being able to provide safe services for the season. of summer.
We cannot remain silent in the face of the severe deterioration of the services provided in our emergencies and the pressure our teams face.written by the representative of the Regroupement des chefs d’urgence du Québec (RCUQ), doctor Marie-Maud Couture.
Discovered
In a letter obtained by Radio-Canada and sent recently to CEO health establishments in Quebec, all emergency medical chiefs of Quebec draw a series of findings and suggestions.
According to them, it has become a daily occurrence that more than 50% of the stretchers in the emergency room are occupied by hospitalized patients waiting for bed upstairs. [et que] these patients remain for more than 24 to 48 hours in the emergency room, due to hospital overcrowding.
According to available data compiled by Radio-Canada, the percentage of patients on the stretcher staying for more than 24 hours in the emergency room has decreased from approximately 17% when the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) seated in 2018 up nearly 22% last year.
Since the start of the holidays in the health sector, a week ago, this rate has changed between 24% and 32%.
More than a million patients go on a stretcher to the emergency room each year. Many will require hospitalization.
In the opinion of emergency managers, increasing admission delays between emergency departments and care units is associated with a greater risk of death and complications for patients.
” Many possible preventable deaths have been reported by emergency managers in recent months due to lack of access to a stretcher and the care the condition requires. “
A doctor from the Montreal region agrees that he wants to hide his identity. The fact that elderly patients remain in the emergency room for lack of beds elsewhere clearly accelerates mortality and morbidity.he says.
According to the representative of RCUQdoctor Marie-Maud Couture, our emergencies are being forced to abandon their mission to become hospital overflow units. Patients on the stretcher are pushed back into the spaces provided for outpatients. The lack of capacity created by this overcrowding even goes as far as to delay the management and evaluation of new patients..
Not enough support
In their message, the chief medical officials believed that the management of non-emergency cases by their family doctor colleagues was not enough.
The burden of redirecting non-emergency clients to the front line is heavy on our teams; […] the first line does not respond to this requesttheir advice.
They consider it is unacceptable that management allows the closure of short-term beds for the summer season and they do not [se] do not feel responsible for the inequality of the population in accessing emergency services.
It is imperative that overall management is also responsible for the quality and safety of this care that is now compromised.they added.
Called to respond, the president of the Union of Nurses, Respiratory Therapists and Auxiliary Nurses of Laval (SIIIAL-CSQ), Déreck Cyr, recalled that its members had been living for several months. situations of fatigue in the Cité de la Santé emergency room, frequent OSI (compulsory overtime) and work interruptions.
According to him, one of the solutions is to remove from the responsibility of emergency personnel the 15 overflow beds added to the 49 stretchers in the emergency room permit.
Source: Radio-Canada
