Berni Wood was in the throes of a COVID-19 infection and was struggling to breathe when she was told she would have to wait upwards of 20 hours in a Prince Edward Island emergency room to receive medical care.
The Charlottetown resident tested positive for the coronavirus just before the July 1 long weekend, and a few days into her illness, she began wheezing and couldn’t breathe.
When she arrived by ambulance at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) in Charlottetown — P.E.I.’s largest hospital — paramedics had planned to take her into a back room, as she was sick with COVID-19. But there was no room. So she was told to sit in the main waiting room. It was crammed with people.
P.E.I. resident Berni Wood was shocked when she was recently put in an ER with ailing patients while she struggled to breathe with COVID-19. She was told the wait would be up to 20 hours or more.
Submitted photo.
She sat down next to a woman who believed she’d had a stroke. Nearby was a man with pains in his chest.
“I’m sitting around with all these people knowing I am COVID positive, and that really concerned me,” she said.
After three hours, Wood asked a nurse how much longer she would have to wait.
“I was quickly told that the wait would be probably 16 to 20 hours or longer.”
Wood left the ER and called a pharmacist, who was able to prescribe her a puffer to help her breathe.
Wood is just one of millions of Canadians who are increasingly faced with fewer options for medical care, thanks to staffing shortages in health care across Canada, which have led to a cascade of ER closures, extended waiting times and even several deaths of patients who died waiting for medical care.
Queen Elizabeth Hospital emergency department in Charlottetown, P.E.I.
Global News
At least 15 per cent of P.E.I. residents don’t have a family doctor, according to Health P.E.I. data, and when they get sick they often find it impossible to access walk-in clinics because they fill up within minutes of opening. They are left with no option but to go to an emergency room and wait several hours, whether their medical needs are urgent or not.
The problem has become exacerbated by the intermittent closures and reduced hours of some of the province’s smaller rural emergency departments.
Western Hospital’s Collaborative Emergency Centre, an overnight urgent care centre in western P.E.I., located about 125 kilometres from Charlottetown, was closed earlier this month for the remainder of August, due to a lack of available staff.
Health worker shortages have also closed the emergency room at Western Hospital multiple times this summer, most often during weekends, leaving the thousands of people who live west of Summerside with no option but to drive to Summerside or Charlottetown if they need urgent medical care or hope an ambulance is staffed and available to respond.
Western Hospital in Alberton, P.E.I.
Global News
Jason Woodbury, president of the union that represents paramedics in P.E.I., says call volumes have increased in the wake of Western’s frequent ER closures and the long-term closure of the urgent care centre.
This is putting additional pressure on ground ambulance services that are “already in a critical state,” Woodbury said.
“It is not uncommon for vehicles to go unstaffed,” he said. “We’re facing our own staffing crisis within our organization.”
Patients are now faced with longer wait times when they call 911 in western P.E.I. — a situation that has a domino effect on the larger hospitals in Charlottetown and Summerside that must now take diverted patients, Woodbury said.
In July, the QEH was forced to activate Code Orange protocols — normally activated after a major disaster or unexpected influx of patients — after a single-car crash involving just four people, due to the high number of patients already in the hospital’s emergency department at the time.
Health P.E.I. CEO Dr. Michael Gardam says the health authority has been forced to prioritize the province’s three larger emergency departments.
