(Quebec) While emergency rooms are busier than ever, the time is not to add measures to unclog them, but rather to successfully implement them, argues the Minister of Health, Christian Dubé. A special effort will be made to standardize them.
“It is no longer so much new measures that we need, but rather to implement them”, argued Christian Dubé before the meeting of the Council of Ministers – the first of 2023. The minister maintains that “the next few weeks will be difficult” in the emergency rooms of Greater Montreal, but that the establishments must now deploy the measures targeted by the crisis unit responsible for relieving congestion in the emergency rooms.
He gave the mandate to his assistant deputy minister at the Ministry of Health and Social Services, Daniel Desharnais – who is at the helm of the crisis unit created in October – to identify the “specific places” where the measures announced do not are still not implemented and to accompany them to achieve the “expected results”.
For example, the “overcapacity protocol” on the floors announced before the holidays is not yet applied in all establishments. “It’s often not a lack of willpower, but [ils] may not have the resources or the expertise to do so,” the minister said.
The Press reported Wednesday that the emergency room is busier than ever after experiencing some lull over the holidays. The average occupancy rate in the province’s emergency room stood at 130.7% on Tuesday, a peak not reached since January 2020. Congestion due to lack of staff. Result: the patient care time increases.
The average length of stay on a stretcher now reaches 7:51 p.m., according to the Legault government dashboard. This rate hovered around 6 p.m. at the end of November.
At the Suroît hospital in Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, the emergency room occupancy rate was 270% on Tuesday morning. The situation is also particularly glaring in Lanaudière (occupancy rate of 200%), in the Laurentians (159%) and in Outaouais (158%).
There are encouraging signs that the measures we are taking will pay off at some point. But we don’t yet have that effect in the occupancy rate.
Christian Dubé, Minister of Health
Measures announced by the crisis unit
- Opening of the pediatric line 811
- Creation of specialist nurse practitioner (NPS) clinics
- Floor overcapacity protocol to release emergencies
- Set up a hospital fluidity team (one manager per establishment to ensure that patients who no longer need to be in the emergency room are referred elsewhere)
- Increase in home accommodation
From the “urgent to the important”
Christian Dubé begins the new year by explaining that he wants to focus on files that require the implementation of “structuring” measures. When he took charge of the ministry in June 2020, in the midst of the pandemic crisis, it is known that he had divided his work into two categories: the urgent and the important. He also says he sees his role as that of a coordinator.
“It’s fun working to put out fires and deal with emergencies, but I’m not here for that, I’m here to have structuring effects that will change things,” he said. straight away, during his first press briefing of the year. Upon his arrival at the Council of Ministers on Wednesday, Mr. Dubé also said that he was “dangerously in shape”.
“We will try to get out of the urgent to work a little more on the important,” he added as parliamentary work is due to resume on January 31. After tabling a new version of his bill on access to health data, in December, Christian Dubé has in the cards the creation of the Health Quebec agency, which must also pass by law, to improve governance. of the health system.
He entrusted the Minister responsible for Seniors, Sonia Bélanger, with the bill on the expansion of medical assistance in dying, in the previous version died on the order paper in June.