VICTORIA — A group representing emergency room doctors across the country has a message for Canada's premiers: come up with a co-ordinated plan to prevent their workplaces from being closed due to staffing shortages that are creating an unprecedented crisis in health care.
Dr. Atul Kapur, a spokesman for the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians, said premiers gathering at a meeting in Victoria on Monday and Tuesday need to prioritize the recruitment and retention of healthcare professionals, and not just in the short-term.
"We've been sounding the alarm about shortages of physicians and nurses for quite some time," Kapur said, adding the temporary closure of emergency rooms is particularly troubling in rural areas because the next closest ER is often far away.
One of the biggest gaps in the healthcare system is the lack of nurses, said Kapur, an ER doctor in Ottawa.
"We recognize that our nursing colleagues are vital, that in (emergency) especially, the stresses on them are even more than they are on us because they bear more of the brunt of patient and family anger than we do."
A lack of nurses on wards means patients who have been admitted to hospital languish in emergency departments, leaving fewer beds available for those stuck in waiting rooms, including people who don't have a family doctor, Kapur said.
Data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information shows admitted patients across Canada waited 38.3 hours in emergency rooms in 2019-2020, up from 29.3 hours five years earlier. The total number of visits spiked to nearly 1.6 million during that time, up from just over 1.1 million.
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