David Raymond Amos@DavidRayAmos Replying to @DavidRayAmos@Kathryn98967631 and 48 others Methinks the doctors responded rather quickly when the RCMP brought me to the ER of the DECH in order to have me falsely imprisoned in its mental ward for the benefit of their political bosses N'esy Pas?
ER wait times in Fredericton 4 times longer than national standard
51 Comments Commenting is now closed for this story.
Shawn McShane Meanwhile we can afford to give CEO of NB Power $13 Million for his company in Florida..
David Amos Methinks its strange that these same doctors were quick to respond and lock me up when the RCMP brought me to the ER of the DECH in order to have me falsely imprisoned in their looney bin for the benefit of their political bosses N'esy Pas?
Graeme Scott When medicare was introduced I believe Ottawa provided nearly half the funding. The last I read the federal portion of healthcare spending had fallen into the low 20's% range, leaving the provinces to carry the burden
David Amos
Reply to @Graeme Scott: Perhaps that is why the province won't give me a healthcare card
Shawn McShane
Reply to @Graeme Scott: Conservative PM Brian Mulroney cut federal health transfers by 25 per cent. Liberal PM Paul Martin cut federal health transfers by 40 per cent and eliminated legislation that ensured provinces spent those dollars on health care.
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Joseph Vacher At least my corpse can be served in the language of my choice
David Amos
Reply to @Joseph Vacher: Methinks its wise to plan to not bother talking to any of them ever again It will be our turn to ignore the politicians and their bureaucrats N'esy Pas?
ER wait times in Fredericton 4 times longer than national standard
Some patients can wait up to 20 hours to see a doctor at the Chalmers emergency room
Emergency room physicians at the Dr. Everett Chalmers Regional Hospital in Fredericton are asking for additional hours for doctors to cut down on long wait times for patients. (Shutterstock)
Eighteen emergency department doctors in Fredericton are speaking out about "dangerously long" wait times and under-staffing at Dr. Everett Chalmers Regional Hospital.
Some patients wait up to 20 hours to see a physician, the doctors said in a commentary published this week in the Daily Gleaner.
"We cannot safely serve the people who need our care, because there are not enough physicians to see patients."
Dr. Graeme Young, chief of the hospital's emergency room, said funding for doctors now covers 46 hours a day, a number that hasn't changed since 2004. Before that, doctors had 43 hours.
"We're having a hard time keeping up with that crisis, and it's a true crisis on a day-to-day basis," Young said in an interview on Information Morning Fredericton.
The 46 doctor hours in the ER are made up of five eight-hour shifts throughout the day and one six-hour shift.
We are seeing more complicated patients and many more of them.- Dr. Graeme Young
Doctors are now asking for enough funding to cover 57 hours of work per day.
Young said this would allow them to see each patient that comes into the ER in a more timely fashion. "We would have physician hours allocated at times when the need is there," he said.
The largest group of ER patients falls into the category of triage three, which includes patients who come in with abdominal pains, pregnancy complications or a child with a fever.
Triage one patients need immediate assistance, while triage five patients are those needing non-urgent care.
More than 19,000 patients
In 2004, the Chalmers ER saw 10,000 triage three patients. Today, that number has jumped to more than 19,000 a year.
"If there's no physician available to pick a patient, see a new patient because they're tied up with the current patient they have in the emergency department, then the patients just simply end up waiting," Young said.
According to the Canadian Triage and Acuity Scale, the national standard for triage three patients is 30 minutes.
But triage three patients at the Chalmers wait up to two hours — four times longer than the national standard.
Dr. Graeme Young says the Chalmers ER is seeing more patients than 15 years ago, the last time doctor hours were increased, and the issues are more complex. (CBC)
"It's a big group of patients that are really important," Young said. "These are sick patients that cannot be cared for in a community environment."
Young said funding has been based on an outdated Medicare formula created in the 1980s that measures how many physicians are required to keep the facility open 24 hours a day.
But the formula doesn't properly assess the severity of problems in patients coming into the emergency room.
"As we progress through 2019, our patients are very much more complex now than they were in 2004, when we had the last increase in physician hours," he said.
"We are seeing more complicated patients and many more of them."
Doctors criticized for being 'too slow'
The hospital was built to handle 35,000 ER patients a year. Now, Young said, it sees more than 51,000. "We're in the same building, in the same platform, with the same nursing resources, with the same physician resources, and we're being criticized because we're too slow continuously," he said.
The commentary was sent as a letter to the province at the end of April. Young said doctors haven't received any response from Health Minister Ted Flemming.
Doctors have been pushing for additional hours since 2004.
CBC News has asked New Brunswick's Department of Health for an interview.
Meanwhile, Young said Horizon Health Network is continually assessing the ability of the ER to see more patients.
CBC News has also asked for an interview with hospital administration, who said they would provide a statement.
