An influx of flu patients has doubled wait times at Winnipeg’s emergency rooms

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This article was published 30/12/2014 (4233 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg’s emergency rooms are overrun with flu-sufferers, some of whom waited 14 hours for care last week.

Monday morning, a patient at Seven Oaks General Hospital was finally seen after overnighting nearly 15 hours in the ER. And on Christmas Eve, a patient was finally treated at about 10 a.m. after a 14-hour wait.

The information came from real-time waiting-room data posted online by the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, which was analyzed by the Free Press.

The WRHA said Monday wait times have effectively doubled in recent days due to a huge, early spike in flu patients. Saturday was particularly rough. More than 900 people visited an ER for care, up from the 700 to 750 people the WRHA would normally see during a busy Christmas holiday weekend.

“We are seeing not only more people, but sicker people,” said Lori Lamont, the WRHA’s vice-president and chief nurse. “Nine-hundred is certainly a very high number for us.”

Typically, Winnipeg hospitals admit 12 per cent of patients who come through emergency rooms. That admission number is now more than 20 per cent, with many of those suffering from existing conditions exacerbated by flu-like symptoms.

Health officials are not sure when the spike will soften or whether the influx of flu patients suggests vulnerable people aren’t getting the flu shot. Lamont said its also too soon to tell if a late mutation in the flu virus rendered this year’s vaccine less effective.

To cope with packed ERs, the WRHA has brought on more doctors and nurses, including at least one extra internist at each emergency department. The health authority has also opened extra beds normally used for elective surgery, and extended hours at QuickCare clinics. Those two neighbourhood clinics will stay open to 10 p.m. to deal with the increased patient load.

Wait times at Winnipeg’s six adult ERs have been under scrutiny recently. Earlier this month, the province released the inquest report into the death of Brian Sinclair, the wheelchair-bound First Nations man who died at HSC after spending 34 hours in the emergency room, untreated. His death sparked significant changes in the way HSC manages emergency patients.

In September, the Canadian Institute for Health Information released a report that found wait times at Winnipeg ERs on the rise and well above the national average. The Grace Hospital topped the list. There, CIHI found many patients wait more than nine hours to see a doctor.

The WRHA’s wait-time data show the Grace, long seen as the most trouble-prone emergency room, is likely the slowest place to seek emergency care. It has the fewest number of patients — six — at any given time but one of the longest waits. The longest wait for non-urgent care is, on average, nearly 3.5 hours.

‘We are seeing not only more people, but sicker people. Nine-hundred is certainly a very high number for us’

— Lori Lamont, WRHA’s vice-president and chief nurse

Lamont said the relatively small number of patients in the Grace ER can skew the data, and the WRHA has been working to improve the ER in recent months. That includes increasing the hours of availability of medical specialists and helping elderly people return home.

Lamont said long waits in ERs aren’t always the result of an influx of patients or a shortage of doctors and nurses. Often, a shortage of nursing-home and acute-care beds causes a bottleneck in the ER. If acute-care beds are being used by people better treated long-term in nursing homes, new patients are stuck on stretchers in the ER for 10 or 12 hours waiting to be admitted.

maryagnes.welch@freepress.mb.ca

inayat.singh@freepress.mb.ca