Calgary ER doctors sound alarm over system in crisis
Global News
Over 180 doctors across Calgary are raising the alarm over the state of emergency care in the city.
Doctors across Calgary are sounding the alarm over the state of emergency care in the city.
“Signs of a capacity crisis are everywhere,” an open letter to Albertans signed by more than 180 emergency physicians reads.
“Our emergency departments are collapsing and frontline healthcare workers have truly had enough. We cannot bear to watch our patients suffer any longer with no end in sight.”
The letter points to three “critical areas of concern” the emergency doctors said are directly impacting patient care: insufficient primary health care, lack of hospital beds and labour shortages.
“There’s lots of areas of the health-care system right now that are not functioning as well as they should,” Dr. Marc Francis, who works at the Alberta Children’s Hospital, said.
“And the challenge in the emergency department is if there’s a health care storm going on, we are truly in the eye of that storm. If there’s challenges in other areas of health care, we feel that in the emergency department every day.”
Dr. Sean Fair is an emergency doctor at the Foothills and Rocky View hospitals. He said the system is suffering alongside its patients.
“We are witness right now to what has essentially been a prolonged health care collapse that has resulted in patients experiencing inhumane wait times, frequently well over eight hours, 15 hours,” he said. “And even after they receive care, patients who are admitted to hospital languishing in the emergency department because there’s no space for them in the hospital system upstairs.”