Bursting At The Seams

Last modified on February 14th, 2008

While many of you may be out tonight doing something for Valentine’s day, just hope that you don’t hurt yourself and end up in an emergency room in New Westminster. Apparently the fire marshal was called in yesterday and was forced to clear part of the ER due to overcrowding:

The fire marshal has ordered an area of the emergency room at Royal Columbian Hospital in New Westminster to be cleared because of overcrowding. Fraser Health Authority spokesman Michael Bernard said the fire department was called to the hospital after receiving a complaint about crowding.

“He took a look around the emergency room and found it was unacceptable crowding in one particular area where he wanted to have free access and egress in the event of a fire or a problem,” he said.

[..]

Eleven people were waiting to be assessed in the ER and 27 more were in the admissions area when the marshal arrived.

“He said you can’t operate like this. You can’t have people in the hallway. This is a bottleneck.”

While this may just be a temporary problem due to a sudden surge in people needing treatment, some people obviously think it is the it is the result of budget cuts over the years:

NDP MLA Adrian Dix said the crisis at Royal Columbian is a direct result of government cuts in recent years.

“This is the outcome of the cuts to the acute-care beds in the Fraser Health and Vancouver Coastal Health authorities and the closure of St. Mary’s Hospital in New Westminster,” said Dix.

“The provincial government cut 650 acute-care beds. And the Campbell government got rid of St. Mary’s Hospital to build condominiums.”

He said the government made such a colossal mistake in closing St. Mary’s that it’s too “politically embarrassed” to do anything about the crisis it has caused at Royal Columbian.

The focus of the current news is obviously on the Royal Columbian hospital in New Westminster, but having personally spent time in both Vancouver General Hospital and St. Paul’s this year, I can say for certain that overcrowding is happening in those hospitals as well.

And while you digest that little bit information, here’s my contribution for Valentine’s day.



18 responses to “Bursting At The Seams”

  1. Sketchin says:

    haha that video is priceless!

  2. bluenotemister says:

    awww… Ze Frank… the wise words of Ze Frank.

  3. It’s really scary to think about the situation in the hospitals…
    People are obviously not going to get the care and treatment they need (like it wasn’t bad already!) I’m fearful of what the sitatuion will be in a couple years from now if they are already having to force people out of the hospitals because of overcrowding. If they don’t focus more on the health care system … (ie. getting more beds back in the hospitals, having a sufficient amount of staffing) than there is going to be a crisis…

    Thanks for the video too Duane …. so funny!

  4. strangedays3 says:

    Hospitals should never be too overcrowded to help people that is disgusting… however…

    I have been in the emergency room many times and I don’t know how many people who I could spot who were there for reasons that weren’t emergencies- if the hypochondriacs of the world didn’t go – the over crowding wouldn’t be as bad. That’s not to say if a person believes they need help they shouldn’t go, they definitely should if they feel that uneasy about their situation, however I know a few emerg. room nurses who will tell you that a lot of the time – the emergency rooms aren’t being used for emergencies.
    That just reminded me of the flu shot commercial ‘save the emergency rooms for emergencies’ personally I am against a shot that includes ingrediants that share resemblance to anti-freeze and remain to be only 40% effective.. but that’s another can of worms.
    That also being said – there should never be not enough beds to help people who need it.

  5. Justin says:

    Man. I just read an article about how wonderful our health care system is…but sadly the all too common significant waiting lines were completely ignored, as was the rising cost without a matching increase in tax base to adequately support the system…

  6. patrick bell says:

    I personally believe that the current government loves the media jumping all over critical health care issues as they can use situations such as this to justify private facilities……even though we know the bastards are cutting back big time to the point where the system is crumbling within…

  7. keira-anne says:

    Well thank god we’re getting a speed skating oval in Richmond. Priorities, y’know.

  8. dzgsma says:

    LMAO!!!! That is awesome!

  9. TOflat says:

    The man is brilliant. The whole hospital room thing is a definate problem especially in Toronto. I went in last year on crutches and a temporary cast and I still had to wait 6 hours in the emergency room for a 30 min procedure which consisted of X rays and getting a plaster cast put on around my foot. With all the cutbacks I’m not surprised things get worse and worse as time goes on, but I can’t stomach it when things get that bad.

  10. deb says:

    I’m fully convinced that my mother’s death was at least in part attributed to overcrowding in ER’s and the lack of proper attention she received during her several visits to them. Although she’d been rushed to ER several times (three in one week) over the course of a couple of years, she was never admitted. They never had an open bed for her or did further testing and by the time she was diagnosed with brain cancer (3 tumors), it was too late and inoperable.

    It goes beyond the ER’s and is also evident in other departments (I know first hand this applies to ICU as well). My father was actually held overnight in the day surgery recovery room after having critical surgery to repair two aneurysms before they ruptured….the reason – no available bed for him in the ICU. His surgery was actually postponed several times because of this and they finally took him in, despite having an adequate place for him to recover in afterward. It’s damn scary.

  11. Duane Storey says:

    Yah, it is a huge problem. When my dad had his heart attack last year, he had to wait in the Chilliwack ICU for 5 days before anyone could slot him in down in Vancouver for an angiogram. When I was in the hospital with pneumonia last year, it took them a full 24 hours to find me a bed — I was actually being treated in the hallway for a while, on a gurney, before then.

  12. satchboogieca says:

    That video is hilarious. Thanks Duane.

    My family has 4 nurses. They complain about government cuts all the time, as this happened in Ontario where we live.

    From what I can tell…
    Hospitals: We need more money to operate more efficiently
    Government: We are not giving you more money until you operate more efficiently

    … round and round…

  13. deb says:

    and an afterthought….what’s going to happen in 2010 if there is a disaster of some sort (I mean you have to consider it)? Who doesn’t get emergency treatment?

    I don’t think a city should be awarded the Olympics unless the basic services are in place and there are adequate accomodations for all (housing, medical services).

  14. Librahoppa says:

    I work in an Emergency Department, I wish the AMA would put out a list of diagnosis that is acceptable to come into the ER with the public and start enforcing steep punishment’s for those people who do not meet that criteria and/or abuse it by saying they meet the criteria when really they don’t (drug seeking comes to mind here).
    This would limit the amount of time being wasted on people who should otherwise be seeing a Doctor outside of the ER. It would free up time that could be spent on people with acute problems, and get them diagnosed quicker, admitted if need be or discharged to another Doctor within a reasonable amount of time. As it stands, I am very resentful of the current situation.

  15. deb says:

    [quote comment=”42020″]I work in an Emergency Department, I wish the AMA would put out a list of diagnosis that is acceptable to come into the ER with the public and start enforcing steep punishment’s for those people who do not meet that criteria and/or abuse it by saying they meet the criteria when really they don’t (drug seeking comes to mind here).
    This would limit the amount of time being wasted on people who should otherwise be seeing a Doctor outside of the ER. It would free up time that could be spent on people with acute problems, and get them diagnosed quicker, admitted if need be or discharged to another Doctor within a reasonable amount of time. As it stands, I am very resentful of the current situation.[/quote]

    Great point. When I rushed Dad back in a week after his surgery in excruciating pain (he’d developed a kidney stone), we had to wait some time with him doubled over in a wheelchair because others were there ahead of us. One guy was there for a toothache (I told him what I thought about that). Another teenage girl (who was giggling) was having heart palpitations, but her actions in the waiting room convinced me that she wasn’t dying.

    A very good point.

  16. Duane Storey says:

    Just to play devil’s advocate here a bit. I moved to Vancouver officially about 4 years ago. To this day, I still don’t have a family doctor since many of them are not taking new patients. On the best of days, it can take me over 2 hours to get into the clinic, and on the worst of days I haven’t been able to get in at all. If I had a family doctor, I imagine it could take days to get an appointment to go see him/her.

    Maybe all these people being at the emergency isn’t actually the real problem — maybe instead they represent the symptom of a much bigger problem in health care. That is the difficulty of obtaining it for many people, or being able to see a doctor in a relatively short period of time.

    Just something to think about.

  17. Librahoppa says:

    [quote comment=”42027″]Just to play devil’s advocate here a bit.

    I moved to Vancouver officially about 4 years ago. To this day, I still don’t have a family doctor since many of them are not taking new patients. On the best of days, it can take me over 2 hours to get into the clinic, and on the worst of days I haven’t been able to get in at all.

    If I had a family doctor, I imagine it could take days to get an appointment to go see him/her.

    Maybe all these people being at the emergency isn’t actually the real problem — maybe instead they represent the symptom of a much bigger problem in health care. That is the difficulty of obtaining it for many people, or being able to see a doctor in a relatively short period of time.

    Just something to think about.[/quote]

    You know, I hear this a lot, and I don’t know your particular situation, but I do know that if you look hard enough(at least in Washington and Oregon State) you can find a family Doctor who is willing to see you, you just have to keep looking, and if you do it right it can take awhile, but in the end it is worth it. Doctor’s are booked solid, that is true, but they are out there and there is always a Doctor willing to take a new patient somewhere. Because I know how the game is played, I researched my Doctor in the following way:
    1.) I picked a general area that I was willing to travel to go see a Doctor(certain part of town, location).
    2.) I walked into several office’s and looked at the Doctor’s personel brochure’s that SHOULD BE available to the public and then I asked question’s at the front desk(Do you have an urgent care center? on call weekends? how many Doc’s work in this office? do they rotate weekends? what hospital does so and so work out of?)
    3.) I call the hospital the Doc works out of and ask for the “general medicine” ward and ask the Nurse’s what they think of such and such Doctor. Then I get on the internet and do two things: first I go to the AMA website and make sure He/She is board certified, then I go to any website “rate your Doctor” and see if anyone has said anything negative or positive about Him/Her.
    Then I make my decision. You may think this is a lot of work, but if your as accident prone as I am, the right FP/IM Doc can make all the difference in the world. I always say to myself, “I am worth the effort!” especially now when I see all these people coming into the ER to be stitched up after an accident, because I know the difference between the FP Doc and the ER Doc is about $1000.00 dollars give or take depending on the injury and the treatment recieved. Don’t EVER choose a Doctor that does not have on call weekends, they are not worth your time and money!
    My Doctor has 2 emergency lot’s open in the mornings, and if I have an emergency he makes the time to see me, I have never had a problem getting in. The urgent care is right next door to my Doctor’s office, so anything urgent is taken care of there at the facilities. I would never go to an ER unless I cut an artery or I am not breathing…so far so good.
    I don’t know the Canadian health care system, but I know it can’t be that different in set up.

  18. deb says:

    [quote comment=”41983″]Yah, it is a huge problem. When my dad had his heart attack last year, he had to wait in the Chilliwack ICU for 5 days before anyone could slot him in down in Vancouver for an angiogram.

    When I was in the hospital with pneumonia last year, it took them a full 24 hours to find me a bed — I was actually being treated in the hallway for a while, on a gurney, before then.[/quote]

    Brutal….the hallway. My father in law also had the pleasant experience of hallway treatment after his brain aneurysm…he died a few days later, despite being fully aware, coherent and responsive when he was initially admitted. And remember that patient who was actually stuck in a broom closet for a day or two because there wasn’t a bed? There’s something very wrong with this picture. I had a real problem with looking out from my father’s window in a dilipidated, overcrowded, dirty hospital at a massive oval that takes up an entire block. Plenty of room in that beautiful, new facility…how ironic that they’re right around the corner from each other.

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