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Home Life Wellness .Alberta says it's reducing ER wait times

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JOHN COTTER

Published: March 07, 2011 6:46 p.m.
Last modified: March 07, 2011 6:52 p.m.
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Text size EDMONTON - Alberta health officials say the government's plan to reduce long wait times in hospital emergency rooms is working in some ways, but in others, not so much.

Health Minister Gene Zwozdesky said Monday the average number of people waiting to be moved from an emergency room bed to an acute care bed each day in Edmonton, Calgary and Red Deer hospitals has dropped by 55 per cent since September.

But officials acknowledge that it is still taking too long for people to get treatment in ERs.

With the government's health-care credibility on life support, Zwozdesky chose to accentuate the positive.

"This is a significant downward trend that indicates the situation in emergency departments is improving," he said at a news conference. "Patients who need to be admitted are getting into beds sooner."

A detailed breakdown released by the government suggests a 68 per cent decrease in such wait times in Calgary; a 42 per cent drop in Edmonton and a 68 per cent decrease in Red Deer.

But what about the time it takes to get care when a patient walks through a hospital emergency room door?

Dr. Chris Eagle, acting CEO of Alberta Health Services, said improvements on that so-called "length of stay" front will take more time.

He said part of the problem is that ERs are clogged with seasonal flu patients who all need thorough medical assessments.

"The complexity and the volume of our cases in the emergency department is anything but simple," Eagle said. "That is why length of stay is and will be a bigger challenge and why it will take longer to reach those targets."

Problems with long wait times and horror stories in emergency rooms have dogged Premier Ed Stelmach's government since October, when some physicians warned the system was so overcrowded it was teetering on collapse.

The lobby group Friends of Medicare said the government is really only moving the overcrowding situation around to different parts of the hospital system.

The real problem is that Alberta has too few acute and long-term hospital beds compared with 20 years ago, even though the province's population has grown by more than a million people in that time, said Dave Eggen, executive director of the group.

"This simply means patients are being moved from the hallways of the emergency into the hallways and nooks and crannies of the hospital wards," Eggen said.

"Build and staff the beds we need to serve Albertans. Anything short of that is misleading."
Zwozdesky said the government is making progress and anything that moves people into hospital beds frees up spaces for people who need emergency medical care.

He also noted the government is on track to complete its plan to open 360 new hospital beds in Edmonton and Calgary by the end of the month.