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Citing the heart attack death of a 44-year-old Edmonton man while in ER at the Grey Nuns Community Hospital and long waits in emergency rooms, some doctors are calling for the province to declare a medical state of emergency.
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Dr. Paul Parks, president emeritus of the Alberta Medical Association, said the demand for care is currently “outstripping the ability to supply it.”
“In medicine, we call that a disaster,” Parks said. “It’s a medical disaster now that we have in the front lines.”
According to Dr. Raj Sherman, who works in the ER in Stony Plain, one issue that is continuing to plague the system is patients in the hospital needing long-term care.
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“We have 650 people in the Edmonton zone in hospitals who are fragile seniors. They’re not sick, but they need home care, transition care, rehab care, hospice care, assisted living, and about 30 per cent need long-term care,” Sherman said.
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“When they’re occupying hospital beds upstairs, we can’t move sick people from emergency upstairs where they belong.”
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In a statement, Assisted Living and Social Services press secretary Amber Edgerton said there has been “a concerted effort to ensure patients who no longer require acute care are transitioning out of hospital and into the care they need in community.”
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“These efforts are paying off, with the number of Alternate Level of Care patients (ALCs) in the province decreasing approximately 20 per cent since September — the equivalent of adding the Red Deer Hospital Expansion to the system,” Edgerton’s statement said.
