The Halifax Infirmary is overwhelmed, its emergency room beds filled with patients from other departments, and the ER’s head and a government minister are at odds over whether the crisis is real.

Dr. Sam Campbell, chief of emergency medicine at the Halifax Infirmary, says his staff can’t keep up with the constant flow of ambulances because their beds are full.

He says something must be done.

“We’ve been overwhelmed to the extent where, at the end of last week we had 50 people in the waiting room. We’ve had 52 ambulances a day,” Campbell said.

“A couple of days ago, we had 12 ambulances at one stage, trying to off-load patients and we had no place to put them.”

Patients have had to wait in hallways and even ambulances in recent weeks, because there aren’t enough free beds.

Of the 36 beds in the emergency department — which Campbell says is enough for a city of Halifax’s size — typically 20 of them are taken up by patients waiting to be transferred to another part of the hospital.

But Dr. Peter Vaughan, Nova Scotia’s deputy minister of health, says the situation is seasonal.

“This time of year we’re seeing people who are sick with the flu and other kinds of illnesses. So it’s not uncommon, year after year,” Vaughan said.

In February alone, about 6,000 people at the Halifax Infirmary were treated in emergency department — but about 2,000 people we’re kept waiting longer in an ambulance, a hallway or a waiting room because ER beds were filled with patients waiting for beds in other departments.

“We knew the flu was coming. We knew we would need the beds and the beds aren’t there,” Campbell said.

He said the same situation exists at Dartmouth General Hospital.

Vaughan says the additional capacity Campbell is calling for won’t work — although there have been plans for years to expand Dartmouth General, as well as the Halifax Infirmary when the VG’s Centennial building is torn down.

“We haven’t heard one bit of information from the current government where those plans are,” said NDP MLA Dave Wilson.

Vaughan said the government is “moving forward” with plans for Dartmouth General.

With files from CTV Atlantic’s Rick Grant