Cape Breton hospital cancels elective surgeries due to overcrowding

The Cape Breton Regional Hospital in Sydney has been cancelling elective surgeries recently due to overcrowding.

The Nova Scotia Health Authority said 13 were cancelled last week and three more were cancelled on Tuesday, because beds weren't available.

The health authority said the hospital and its emergency department have been full, in part because 19 beds on Friday were being taken up by patients in acute-care beds waiting for long-term care placement.

Dr. Chris Milburn, head of emergency medicine for the health authority's eastern zone, said the regional hospital has always been busy, but the problem has become acute since family doctors in North Sydney and Glace Bay stopped providing inpatient hospital services.

They made that decision earlier this year because the province pays them less than hospitals who specialize in inpatient care, which led to congestion in the regional hospital's emergency department.

Now, it's affecting elective surgeries.

"We run near 100 per cent on our bed capacity anyway at the regional, so we're always tight, but we've managed, and now with this new situation where we have all these empty spaces in Glace Bay and those patients are coming into Sydney now, that means Sydney is overstuffed," said Milburn.

The health authority couldn't say whether elective surgeries would continue to be cancelled this week because the decision depends on bed availability on any given day.

Milburn said the issue is bound to arise again, though.

"It's pretty much guaranteed to continue until they find doctors to look after the inpatients again in Glace Bay and Northside, and we can repatriate patients from those communities back there to let us have space at the regional," he said.

The lack of beds also means longer wait times in the ER, said Milburn, and that is stressful for patients and for emergency room staff.

"It's a disaster for our emergency room, too," he said.

"When these patients are stuck in hospital ... that leaves us with no room to work in the emergency room. So when people come into the emergency room and they face an eight-hour wait to get seen, a lot of times now that's because all our beds are full of these admitted patients with no bed to go to."

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