The emergency room of the Suroît hospital in Salaberry-de-Valleyfield temporarily and partially closed its doors overnight from Sunday to Monday, due to lack of sufficient staff.
Emergency cases were handled, but patients with minor problems who showed up there before 8 a.m. were told to go home.
A poster “Temporary closure of emergency” had also been installed at the entrance, as evidenced by a photo sent to the To have to.
At 8 a.m. Monday, the occupancy rate on the stretcher at Suroît exceeded 200%. Patients have been installed in the assessment rooms, reports the president of the Union of healthcare professionals of Montérégie-Ouest-FIQ, Mélanie Gignac. “The cubes where the doctors see the patients are full,” she said in an interview at 7 a.m. Monday. There’s a lady sitting in a chair right in the middle of the ER. »
The CISSS de la Montérégie-Ouest denies that the emergency was closed overnight. The establishment indicates that the posters “Temporary closure of the emergency room” have been removed. “Validations are underway to find out who installed them, since this initiative had not had the approval of a manager or members of management,” says spokeswoman Jade Saint-Jean.
The CISSS recognizes, however, that patients who went to the emergency room had to return home. “All patients were triaged, but there was little capacity, non-emergency cases (priorities 4 and 5) were being asked that night to go home and try to see their family doctor today or come back after 8 a.m. to avoid having them wait too long,” explains Jade Saint-Jean.
The shortage of caregivers is glaring at the Suroît hospital. “On the evening shift, in the emergency room, we only have three nurses on the board,” says Mélanie Gignac. They should be between 15 and 17, she says. Day nurses must therefore regularly work overtime and compulsory overtime.
Lack of hospital beds
The Suroît emergency room is overflowing, because patients who need to be hospitalized cannot go upstairs. A problem present in many Quebec emergencies.
“At the moment, we have occupancy rates [sur civière] that you don’t usually see in the months of September-October. It worries us, ”said the assistant deputy minister at the Ministry of Health and Social Services (MSSS), the DD Lucie Opatrny, during an interview with The duty last week.
According to her, “hundreds” of beds are closed in Quebec, due to lack of staff. Many patients, who no longer need acute care, also occupy hospital beds because they are waiting for a place in accommodation (CHSLD, intermediate resource or family-type resource) or in rehabilitation.
In Suroît, 46 of the 65 patients on stretchers Monday morning had been there for more than 24 hours, according to the MSSS. These patients awaiting hospitalization should not end up in the emergency room, according to the president of the Association of Specialists in Emergency Medicine of Quebec, Dr.r Gilbert Boucher.
“We are in the process of creating hospitalization units in the emergency room and that takes away the possibility of carrying out our primary mission, which is to take care of people who come with new problems, he laments. . At the moment, there are several ambulatory services in emergency rooms that are not provided on demand. »
The Dr Boucher refers to patients who go to the emergency room on their own and not in ambulances. “Every day, there are still 5000 to 6000 P4 and P5 [cas non urgents] who come to our emergency room to be seen,” he says. They struggle to see their family doctor or get a consultation at a walk-in clinic.
The Dr Boucher believes that the partial and temporary closure of an emergency room – the ambulatory center overnight, for example – is “never a good solution”. But it may be the “least worst bad solution” to provide rest to caregivers, he thinks.
Forcing healthcare workers to constantly work mandatory overtime to maintain full service can lead to quits, he said. “One or two days [de fermeture du centre ambulatoire] from time to time [la nuit], it will perhaps allow a respite so that in the longer term, they continue to come to work in the emergency room. » According to the Dr Boucher, requests have already been made to this effect in certain emergency rooms in Quebec.
Further details will follow.