The Montreal Children’s Hospital said it was returning some patients and that nurses had cut short their vacations because the emergency department had filled up in recent days with a “significantly higher number of sick and critically ill children.”
The hospital is dealing with an unusual spike in emergency room visits for children of all ages not normally seen in mid-July, and is telling families whose children have non-emergencies to seek other alternatives, such as their family doctors, walk-in clinics , or call the Quebec government’s Info-Santé line.
“We need to protect our ability to care for the sickest of our sick children,” Dr. Robert Barnes, the hospital’s associate director of professional services, told CTV News.
Barnes said the overcrowded emergency room doesn’t see children show up with COVID-19, even though many end up testing positive when they’re screened.
Pediatric infections, gastrointestinal illnesses, or exacerbations of chronic illnesses are among the conditions that lead to this summer’s increase in hospital visits. Montreal Public Health listed the Children’s Hospital Emergency occupancy rate at 192 percent on Sunday.
“And it is this number that has reached a critical level that we are warning the public that if you do not have a serious medical condition, you cannot be seen today in the emergency department of the Montreal Children’s Hospital because we are focusing all of our attention on the most critical and seriously ill,” Barnes said.
Montreal Children’s Hospital currently has a large number of patients who require hospitalization or critical care. This increase puts a strain on emergency departments, which have to care for patients waiting for a bed. 1/2
— Center universitaire de santé McGill (@cusm_muhc) July 17, 2022
Nurses and other health care workers are stepping up to handle the increased demand and more beds have recently reopened, but Barnes said that’s not sustainable.
“Our nurses, our professionals and all our staff at Children’s have done their best, some are coming from holiday, many are coming on their weekend off [when] it wasn’t a day they had to work, and they responded to the call to provide us with that extra capacity over and above the normal summer service levels to take care of so many of these kids,” Barnes said.
Dr. Robert Barnes, Montreal Children’s Hospital, Associate Director of Professional Services. (Joe Lofaro/CTV News)
Even then, that’s still not enough to handle the workload, he said, “and it’s not something we’re going to be able to sustain for a very long time.”
A COMPREHENSIVE HEALTH SYSTEM
The emergency department at the Children’s Center is not immune to the general labor shortage in Quebec’s health care system, Barnes acknowledged, and that returning workers from time off is burning them out.
The overcrowding comes at a time when doctors are expressing concern about intense workloads in Montreal’s emergency departments and a growing number of health workers are generally out of work due to COVID-19. As of Friday, the Ministry of Health reported that 7,138 health workers were absent due to self-isolation, waiting for PCR test results or other reasons related to the coronavirus.
Two young doctors who are leaving Montreal to practice in Toronto recently told CTV News that emergency rooms are “chronically understaffed” and “stressed,” and complained that their workload makes it difficult to care for their own children at home.
“I love Montreal. This is the city I grew up in and to leave it again for the second time is disappointing,” said Dr. Filip Stasiak, who is leaving with his wife, Dr. Daria Denisova.
The couple said their decision to leave was twofold: They blame Quebec’s broken health care system as well as the effects of the controversial new language law, Bill 96.
Lachine Hospital’s emergency department in Montreal and five other emergency departments in Quebec were forced to partially close over the summer due to a shortage of workers. The closures — mostly at night — account for one in 20 across the province in what the province describes as a temporary reduction in service.
“The next few months may be difficult,” Health Minister Christian Dubé said in a press release issued at the end of June. Ontario is also facing a health care staffing shortage, which has led some hospitals to issue emergency department closure warnings during the summer months.
While Quebec has hired 115 doctors for Montreal, family physician Dr. Mark Roper recently told CTV that 71 doctors are retiring in Montreal and 13 family doctors will be leaving for other regions, resulting in a net loss of 84.
He said hiring 115 PREM positions was not enough to address working conditions and patient care.
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