Health minister, hospital CEO debate ER alert

The head of Nova Scotia's largest hospital is questioning whether a "code orange" was the right response to a backlog of patients in a Halifax emergency room.

On Tuesday, an emergency physician at the QEII Health Sciences Centre triggered the alert in an attempt to find beds for a growing number of patients.

A code orange is normally used in the event of a disaster, such as a major industrial or vehicle accident. This was the first time it was used to deal with an internal hospital problem.

Chris Power, CEO of the Capital District Health Authority, said the doctor who triggered the alert had other options.

"I don't know that a code orange was an appropriate call to make, but certainly we needed to respond in a much different way," Power said Friday after a meeting with the provincial minister of health.

Health Minister Karen Casey said the code orange did get people's attention.

"If his motive was to bring attention to this, then perhaps that was successful, but it didn't need a code orange to get attention to this. The hospital staff, CEO were already working on this. They know that there's pressure there and they know that it needs to be relieved," Casey said.

Dr. John Ross, director of the emergency department, said earlier this week there was an "internal disaster" and his goal in using the code orange was to ensure the situation never happens again.

Power said the hospital is putting a plan in place to deal with overcrowding in the emergency department.