Emergency rooms are overflowing again, but some regions are coping better than others. On Monday morning, the stretcher occupancy rate for the entire province was 128 per cent, and Quebec Health expects it to increase in the coming days, partly due to the peak of the flu season, which is about to be reached.
Among the regions where the situation is most critical are the Laurentians with an occupancy rate of 173 per cent; Laval with a rate of 180 per cent ; and the Outaouais with an occupancy rate of 182 per cent in the emergency room.
The Montreal region, which is usually one of the busiest, had an occupancy rate of 135 per cent.
“It’s certain that today, with the outside temperature, we have a lot of falls, a lot of calls to our pre-hospital emergency services, particularly with Urgences-Santé in the Montreal-Laval region. We are all looking together to see how we can deal with this situation,” commented Véronique Wilson, Director General of Coordination, Access, Integrated Emergency and Frontline Services at Santé Québec, in an interview.
“This is a situation that occurs during the winter season, and also during flu season. We have prepared to deal with this situation, but it explains why our rates are higher than usual for emergencies, but we are currently under control,” she adds.
Several regions were below the 100 per cent occupancy rate mark on Monday morning. This was the case for the Capitale-Nationale (97 per cent), Abitibi-Témiscamingue (51 per cent), Bas-Saint-Laurent (87 per cent), Côte-Nord (93 per cent), Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madeleine (75 per cent) and Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean (69 per cent).
Due to holiday gatherings, which are conducive to the transmission of respiratory viruses, Quebec Health anticipates an increase in emergency room visits. “We believe it will continue to rise over the next few days, and we hope that we will soon reach the peak of the flu, and then that it will subside afterward,” says Wilson.
Long wait in the emergency room
Patients arriving at the emergency room should be prepared to wait. According to Index Santé, on Sunday, the average wait time in the waiting room was over 5 hours, and the average length of stay for people waiting on a stretcher was 17 hours.
If we take the average of the last seven days, the length of stay on a stretcher for Greater Montreal exceeded 19 hours and it was more than 16 hours for the whole of the province, according to Quebec Health.
“We have a slight increase compared to the same period last year for our average length of stay on a stretcher, which is explained by the flu peak. If we look at the flu peak of last year, we are below the average length of stay we had at that time,” explains Wilson.
Quebec’s public health agency, Santé Québec, is heavily relying on the Info-Santé 8-1-1 telephone line to alleviate pressure on emergency rooms. This appears to be working, as there are more calls this year than at the same time last year. Currently, there are approximately 7,400 calls per day to 8-1-1, compared to 6,200 last year.
“We also have good results in this area regarding referrals. 37 per cent of people who call 8-1-1 will have their concerns addressed through self-care advice at home. 30 per cent are referred to medical clinics, and only one in six calls to Info-Santé will be directed to our emergency room. So, it’s really worth calling Info-Santé if you have health concerns to get the right guidance and avoid the emergency room whenever possible,” says Wilson.
According to figures from Quebec Health, there is currently an average wait time of approximately 1 hour and 32 minutes on the 8-1-1 telephone line dedicated to flu and gastroenteritis symptoms. The wait is similar for pediatric needs (1 hour and 28 minutes) and reaches 2 hours and 30 minutes for the general 8-1-1 line. It is possible to leave your phone number so that a healthcare professional can call you back when the line becomes available, while maintaining your priority call.
—The Canadian Press’s health coverage is supported by a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. The Canadian Press is solely responsible for this journalistic content.
–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews
