Staff scramble to relieve pressure on Alberta Children's Hospital as families are left waiting

Robyn Coulter knows what it's like to wait in the emergency room at Alberta Children's Hospital, for hours, with a very sick baby.

"It was just very scary and unsettling," said Coulter who's son, Arthur, was born nine weeks premature and suffers from a serious heart condition and epilepsy. 

Arthur, who is ten months old, went into respiratory distress in October after a rapid test came back positive for COVID-19.

Coulter called his specialists and rushed him to Alberta Children's Hospital where he was triaged immediately, taken to a stretcher in the ER, and treated with oxygen and a feeding tube. 

But according to Coulter, nurses were too busy to keep a really close eye on him and it was a total of 17 hours before he was admitted and moved to a bed upstairs.

"It's really hard to sit there and watch your baby in distress when you know they're struggling and you can't seem to be getting help," she said.

The Coulters are one example of a growing number of families caught up in pediatric system overwhelmed with a dramatic increase in children with respiratory illnesses including influenza, RSV and COVID-19.

According to Alberta Children's Hospital pediatrician Dr. Suzette Cooke, the wait just to see a triage nurse can be as long as four to six hours.

And, she said, families are routinely stuck in triage lines that snake out the emergency room doors. 

"That's a little bit concerning because sometimes you're going to see a child in line who's very sick and needs to be seen immediately," said Cooke, noting some illnesses such as appendicitis can't wait.

Once a child is triaged, families can wait a further 17-18 hours to be seen by a physician, she said.

"That is the longest time I've ever seen in my career of 21 years," she said.

"Our inpatient units are overwhelmed. We have far more patients than we actually have beds for so we're trying to make spaces where we can for those patients," said Cooke who is treating a large number of children with respiratory illness who are under the age of five.

According to Alberta Health Services (AHS), inpatient units at the Alberta Children's Hospital have hit at least 100 per cent capacity.