Reopening ERs won't fix Manitoba's struggling health-care system: doctor
CBC
As wait times increase and more patients are walking out of emergency departments without receiving care, some Manitoba doctors say reopening previously closed emergency rooms isn't necessarily the solution.
The recently elected NDP government ran on a pledge to reopen three emergency rooms that were closed and converted to urgent care centres under the previous Progressive Conservative government.
But some front-line workers say addressing patient flow and the systemwide "access block" needs to be the top priority.
"It's important to look at the system — not to impose expensive solutions [of reopening ERs] and oversimplify complex problems," said emergency department physician Dr. Alecs Chochinov.
According to Shared Health data, more than one in three patients who recently sought medical care at Health Sciences Centre's emergency department in Winnipeg left without seeing a doctor.
That number is an important benchmark that doctors and health officials say shows the state of the health-care system.
"The 'left without being seen' rate is a symptom of system dysfunction," Chochinov said.
While hospitals are dealing with critical staffing shortages, Chochinov said one of the single biggest problems throughout the system remains "access block" — when the right care is potentially available, but people cannot access it.
The ER is the canary in the coal mine, said Chochinov.
"Whenever there is a block anywhere, it manifests in the emergency department."
In emergency departments, that's most often due to admitted patients taking up stretchers, blocking people in the waiting room from being able to access care.
But it also comes up with hospital patients "waiting for long-term care options who are stuck," or for those waiting to see a consultant or get diagnostic work, Chochinov said.
Health Sciences Centre chief operating officer Dr. Shawn Young said it's a cascading problem throughout the system.
"We still have a lot of patients in our hospital beds that we're not able to get into … long-term care, home care [or] even getting them out into other jurisdictions, because there's staffing challenges everywhere," Young said when speaking to CBC last week.