Emergency centre at Western Hospital on P.E.I. closes until September

Prince Edward Island's provincial flag flies on a flag pole in Ottawa, Monday, July 6, 2020. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld)

The collaborative emergency centre (CEC) at the Western Hospital in Alberton, P.E.I., will be closed from Aug. 1 to Sept. 15 due to a shortage of staff.

Health PEI, the Island's only health authority, says some centre staff will work in other areas of the hospital.

“Like everywhere else in Canada, our health care system is under extreme strain, and that’s not going to end any time soon,” said Dr. Michael Gardam, CEO of Health PEI, in a news release Monday.

“It’s better to make these calls in advance, so we can deploy our resources to provide the best care possible. And when I say ‘resources’, I mean people: people who are working tirelessly to care for the health of all Islanders.”

According to the P.E.I. government’s website, a collaborative emergency centre uses a team of paramedics with advanced life support training and emergency nurses to provide urgent care assessments in consultation with an on-call emergency physician.

The authority says, on average, one patient visits the CEC per night.

Health PEI says anyone with emergency medical needs should call 911, or seek emergency services when:

• experiencing discomfort or tightness in the chest
• experiencing unusual shortness of breath
• experiencing abdominal pain
• experiencing prolonged and persistent headache or dizziness
• an injury may require stitches or involve a broken bone
• a child has prolonged diarrhea or vomiting
• a baby under six months of age has a fever of 38°C (100.4°F) or higher.