Emergency department closures up slightly for 2016-17

The amount of time Nova Scotia's emergency departments were temporarily closed in the last fiscal year increased by about 460 hours.

The numbers are contained in the most recent annual accountability report on emergency departments, released Thursday by the province's Health and Wellness Department.

Temporary closures are generally the result of nurses, paramedics or doctors being unavailable to staff a site.

The 38 emergency departments across the province have a total of 313,538 scheduled open hours each year. Thursday's report shows a total of 25,124.5 hours of closure for the 2016-2017 fiscal year, running from April until the end of March.

The hike represents the fourth increase in the total number of closure hours in as many years.

Major increases in Springhill, Digby, Tatamagouche

The largest number of closure hours in the Western Zone was at Fishermen's Memorial Hospital in Lunenburg, where there were 3,285 scheduled hours of closure and 224 temporary hours of closure.

When it came to temporary closures, Digby General Hospital (466 hours) and Roseway in Shelburne (421 hours) claimed the zone's largest amounts. The numbers for Digby were up from the previous fiscal year (194), while Roseway saw a significant drop in its closures compared to the previous year (1,331).

The Annapolis Community Health Centre saw 136.5 hours of temporary closure for 2016-17.

In the Northern Zone, All Saints Springhill Hospital had the most closures, with 1,077 temporary hours. Lillian Fraser Memorial in Tatamagouche experienced 410.5 hours of temporary closure, while South Cumberland in Parrsboro (288 hours) and North Cumberland in Pugwash (182.5 hours) also experienced temporary closures in 2016-17.

The numbers in Springhill and Tatamagouche are major increases from the previous year — 300 hours and 99 hours respectively — while Parrsboro saw a major decrease from 2015-16 (762 hours).

Improvements at certain locations often come down to an ability to get people working in specific locations, said Health Minister Randy Delorey.

"If it was a magic solution that in its exact nature was able to be replicated quickly and easily, I think we would execute that," he said.

Scheduled closure numbers similar to 2015-16

The majority of closures in the Eastern Zone were at Northside General Hospital (6,205 scheduled hours and 173 temporary hours) and New Waterford Consolidated (3,647 scheduled hours and 545.5 temporary hours).

Glace Bay Health Care Facility experienced 888.5 temporary closure hours, down from the previous year, and St. Anne Community and Nursing Care Centre had 470 temporary closure hours — up from 114 in 2015-16.

In the Central Zone, Twin Oaks Memorial had 97 hours of temporary closure while Musquodoboit had 4,380 scheduled closure hours and Cobequid Community Health Centre had 2,190 scheduled closure hours.

Need for more involvement

Fishermen's Memorial, Cobequid and Northside have regular hours that are less than 24/7 because of their proximity to a higher level of emergency department care.

Although overall scheduled closure hours are up from the previous report by about 2,000 hours, this is the first time the numbers for Cobequid have been included.

Progressive-Conservative health critic Elizabeth Smith-McCrossin said she thinks recruitment efforts could be increased, thus helping address closures in small communities, by better involving existing doctors.

"You can't exclude the people that are actually doing the work and have success and I think that's really led to why we're seeing what we're seeing today."