The concerns of the national director of public health, the Dr Luc Boileau, are already materializing: the traffic rate in Quebec’s emergency rooms has averaged 127% in the last week. The last time it had been this high was in January 2020, with 130% occupancy, a few months before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Monday, we had an incredible flow of patients. Unfortunately, the system has very little reserve, so many patients have left without being seen. The waiting rooms are crowded,” said the president of the Association of Emergency Medicine Specialists of Quebec, Dr.r Gilbert Boucher.
The emergency rooms receive 10,780 visits per day on average. Of the number, 53% are deemed to be “less urgent or non-urgent”.
Quebecers need a lot of care, but health care personnel are at their wit’s end. It’s hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but we’re taking it one day at a time.
The Dr Gilbert Boucher, President of the Association of Emergency Medicine Specialists of Quebec
The situation is particularly critical in Greater Montreal, he says. Currently, “75% of Montreal ERs are above 130%”.
The month of December is likely to be “difficult” with the high transmission of COVID-19 and influenza in the province, warned Monday the Dr Boileau. He also revealed that flu cases are on the rise in the province. In the last week, 3356 cases of influenza have been identified in Quebec, especially in hospitals. The transmission of COVID-19 also seems to be on the rise, but Quebec notes, however, a drop in the transmission of the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).
The Dr Boucher is already seeing the impacts of this strong transmission of respiratory viruses. “The demand with influenza has increased a lot,” he says.
After the children, it is the turn of the adults and the elderly to find themselves in large numbers in the emergency room, he observes.
If people at risk catch influenza, it could be very difficult for hospitals to become congested.
The Dr Luc Boileau, National Public Health Director of Quebec
More gratifying fact: the number of patients waiting for surgery for over a year is currently declining. In the last week, 691 patients were removed from this list, for a total of 21,066. This figure has already been on a downward trend since the beginning of the fall.
An “inevitable” pressure
At the Jewish General Hospital, the Dr Matthew Oughton, specialist in infectious diseases, is also worried about these data: “127%, that shows you how overloaded the emergencies are currently”.
So far, the proliferation of viruses sweeping Quebec this fall has particularly hurt children. Two weeks earlier, more students were absent from schools than at the peak of the Omicron wave, and nearly one in four children hospitalized with a respiratory virus were fighting more than one infection.
“I expect the same rising phenomenon to soon reach regular hospitals with the same intensity. All these children infected with a virus will transmit it to their parents, their grandparents, their teachers. It is inevitable, ”continues the Dr Ooughton, speaking of a “very difficult holiday season ahead.”
Asked what actions the population must now take to relieve the health network, Mr. Oughton is unequivocal. “We should have learned by this point that wearing a mask in crowded enclosed spaces, staying home when infected, or reducing contact, is key. We have to keep doing it, ”he persists.
Finally, the expert calls on the Legault government to “harder” promote the influenza vaccine, which is now offered free of charge everywhere in Quebec. “It is the size of the waiting lists in the health network and, more generally, access to care for the population that currently depends on it,” concludes the doctor.