Christmas break | The occupancy rate in emergency rooms continues to fall

(Montreal) As a Christmas respite, the occupancy rate in the province’s emergency rooms continues to experience a slight decline since the start of the holiday break, after a difficult month of December in hospital corridors.

At the end of the day Monday, the occupancy rate in Quebec’s emergency rooms reached 89%. It was 87% on December 24, and 96% on December 23, according to the Index Santé website.

In the preceding days, the province’s emergency room occupancy rate had remained above 100%, a level considered “very high.”

Last week, the Minister of Health, Christian Dubé, asked for the population’s help to relieve Quebec’s emergencies during the holiday season. He pointed out that there was a large proportion of people who consulted the emergency room without having an urgent problem.

This call followed a strong outing from Quebec’s emergency chiefs who, in mid-December, denounced an “out of control” situation in the province’s hospitals.¹. Minister Dubé then had to defend his management of the crisis in emergencies.

Declining, but still high

It was in the Laurentides region that the occupancy rate was the highest on Monday. At Mont-Laurier hospital, it was set at 180%, a level lower than the rate of 220% the previous night. The rate was also greater than 100% at Saint-Eustache hospital.

In Lanaudière, the general occupancy rate was also considered very high, at 116% at the end of the day Monday.

In Montérégie, several hospitals had occupancy rates greater than 100% on December 25, including the Anna-Laberge hospital. It is in this Châteauguay hospital that two patients died, including one in the emergency room²at the beginning of December.

The situation seemed better under control on the island of Montreal and in Laval, where the occupancy rate fluctuated between 94% and 96%. The worst traffic in these regions was noted at the Royal Victoria Hospital, the Jewish General Hospital and the Montreal General Hospital.

On the Quebec side, the occupancy rate was only 74% at the end of the day. Only the Saint-Marc-des-Carrières Multiservice Center showed overflow, at 133%.

Elsewhere in Quebec, the occupancy rate was considered high, but less than 100% in the regions of Chaudière-Appalaches, Côte-Nord, Estrie, Mauricie and Outaouais. It was normal in Abitibi-Témiscamingue, Bas-Saint-Laurent, the Gaspésie–Îles-de-la-Madeleine region and Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean.

Index Santé specified on Monday that the day before, the average length of stay of people in the waiting room was a little more than four and a half hours, while the average length of stay of people waiting on a stretcher was at almost 4 p.m.

Other options for care

Last week, Minister Dubé invited people in need of non-urgent care to use other available options during the holidays.

These include family medicine or specialist nurse practitioner clinics, and pharmacies which can provide professional advice. He recalled that the 811 telephone service allows you to speak to a nurse and, sometimes, to obtain an appointment.

The network of winter clinics, specializing in respiratory viruses and gastrointestinal problems³is also deployed throughout Quebec.

Too many Quebecers present themselves in emergency rooms without having benefited from basic care, also deplored the president of the Association of Emergency Medicine Specialists of Quebec, Dr.^r Gilbert Boucher.

Faced with the sharp increase in circulation of COVID-19 and influenza viruses, the national director of public health, D^r Luc Boileau invited people to get vaccinated to slow the spread and avoid complications.

With The Canadian Press

1. https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/sante/2023-12-16/les-urgences-hors-de-controle.php

2. https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/sante/2023-12-05/urgences-debordees/des-enquetes-a-la-suite-de-deux-morts-a-anna-laberge.php

3. https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/sante/2023-12-23/virus-respiratoires-et-intestinaux/le-reseau-des-cliniques-d-hiver-se-deploie-partout-au- quebec.php