It’s an occurrence that Cape Bretoners have become all too familiar with; physician shortages leading to hospital closures across the island.
But as that problem continues, there is growing concern surrounding the doctors and nurses who are quickly becoming overworked, and overtired.
“I walked in the door yesterday, took one look at the situation, and was very close to turning around and walking out,” says emergency room physician Dr. Margaret Fraser. “I looked at it and thought ‘how can I do my job here when I have 24 people already admitted?’. All these people waiting for tests, nowhere to see anybody, and the place is in complete chaos, how can I do my job?”
Dr. Fraser says medical staff at the Cape Breton Regional Hospital are dealing with high volumes of patients, as they are the only hospital offering emergency services in the municipality this Victoria Day long weekend.
That’s because the surrounding communities of Glace Bay, North Sydney and New Waterford all have their hospital E.R. departments closed due to a lack of physicians to cover shifts.
“Glace Bay is supposed to be one of the two sites stay open,” explained Fraser. “The emergency department is supposed to expand and inpatient medicine is supposed to expand, but currently they are not filling the inpatient beds that they have because they don’t have physicians to cover the inpatients. So I don’t understand how that hospital is expected to expand when at the moment, we are not even utilizing its capacity.”
The Nova Scotia Health Authority says they anticipated a busy weekend and were well staffed. They say their biggest challenge is related to patient flow meaning being able to find enough inpatient beds on medical units for patients admitted to hospitals during an E.R. visit.
“Recruitment is ongoing for both emergency department physicians and family physicians who are interested and able to work in E.R. departments,” says Greg Boone, spokesperson for the Nova Scotia Health Authority. “We have interest in physicians who are planning to possibly locate here, but until they are actually on the ground, we can’t predict what impact that would have on scheduling, but we are encouraged by that.”
Nova Scotia’s Health Minister Randy Delorey has previously said he’s confident in the Health Authority’s efforts to fill shifts and balance emergency room schedules, and he’s expecting that recruitment of new doctors will help fill future gaps.
But Dr. Margaret Fraser has her doubts.
“I am worried about the viability of the Northside General and the Glace Bay hospital,” says Dr. Fraser. “As long as we continue to pick up the slack and work through and try to keep things going, it’s possible they say ‘we don’t really need those hospitals’, and we do desperately need them because we can’t continue working flat out like this.”
With files from CTV Atlantic’s Kyle Moore.
