Eriksdale residents worry people 'are going to die' waiting for new ER
Bryce Hoye | CBC News | Posted: April 15, 2024 10:00 AM | Last Updated: April 15
ER at Interlake hospital was closed equivalent of 306 days in 2023, freedom of information request finds
Dale Lloyd's heart stopped on the job 15 years ago.
Luckily, it happened while she was on shift at a health-care facility.
"I dropped dead," said Lloyd. "They did what Eriksdale hospital staff is perfect at: they brought me back to life, shipped me into Winnipeg."
For 35 years, Lloyd worked as a medical records clerk at E.M. Crowe Memorial Hospital in Eriksdale, a community in Manitoba's Interlake, about 130 kilometres north of Winnipeg.
The emergency department there used to be open 24/7, but in recent times it's been closed more than open, said Lloyd.
"I think there are people in our community that are going to die because the services aren't there to save their lives," she said.
WATCH | Residents in Interlake community fear dire consequences from ER closures:
Eriksdale's hospital was closed 63 times last year, according to data obtained by CBC through a freedom of information request. Some closures were just hours long, while others lasted days.
The now governing NDP campaigned last year on a promise to build a new $5-million emergency room at E.M. Crowe Hospital.
The NDP's recently released budget allocates $50,000 for preliminary planning work, according to Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara, but the province declined to say last week how much is now earmarked for the project in total.
Premier Wab Kinew has said the plan is to have shovels in the ground within two years.
But even when the new emergency department is built, staffing is likely to present a challenge, said Keith Lundale, the president of the Eriksdale Chamber of Commerce and a longtime local health-care advocate.
"We can build a state-of-the-art ED or ER, but if we have nobody there to service it 24/7, then what's the point?"
306 days worth of closures last year
Eriksdale's closures amounted to the equivalent of 306 days last year.
Lakeshore Hospital in Ashern, 40 kilometres north, saw its emergency department closed for the equivalent of 91 days.
The Interlake-Eastern Regional Health Authority, which includes both communities, says there were at least 27 full days where both those emergency departments were closed.
That presents a grim scenario.
"I've told my partner if Eriksdale is not on call and I have a heart attack, you head south, and if you make it to Stonewall and I survive, great," said Lloyd.
"Stonewall is at least an hour south, so depending on what's wrong with you, you may not stand a chance."
Lundale said E.M. Crowe's emergency department is only open a few days a month, and with Ashern also prone to disruptions, there are times when there isn't a single emergency room open along Highway 6 — an important artery that runs north-south along Lake Manitoba through the west Interlake.
He said a few years ago, a former nurse at the hospital needed emergency care herself. Eriksdale's ER was closed, so she landed in an ambulance headed to Ashern.
"They got her loaded up and said, 'Oh, we can't take you to Ashern, they're closed.' On the way to Stonewall they got probably 20 miles down the road, Stonewall said 'nope, we're closed now,'" said Lundale.
"It wasn't hallway medicine, it was highway medicine — and nobody deserves that."
'Drastic decline' in ER access
Dr. Jade Young, a Métis physician who was born and raised in Eriksdale, spends some of her time each month working in Garden Hill First Nation, but most of her hours are divided at the local clinic in Eriksdale and at E.M. Crowe, where she's been for three years.
The hospital used to be able to keep its emergency room open 15 days a month, she said.
"We've had a drastic decline in access to emergency care here even during my short time working here," said Young.
"There's a lot of drive from our nurses and from our physicians to keep this emergency department open and without that drive, honestly, I'm not sure that it still would be."
WATCH | Dr. Young details how staffing shortages impact ER access:
She said in her three years there, the hospital has gone from four lab technologists down to one. They do everything from blood work to X-rays and other diagnostic work, and without one on shift, you can't run an emergency department, she said.
Young said the hospital is supposed to be a three-physician facility, but in her time there it's gone from having the equivalent of 2½ doctors on staff to 1½.
The short staffing has "contributed to a lot of burnout in physicians in the smaller rural community hospitals in the Interlake," she said.
"I do my best to transfer people out who are not going to be sorted in a timely fashion, because I'm a human being that has been working for typically 30 hours in a row with only, like, two to three hours of sleep."
Union fears grads will leave Manitoba
Asagwara said they recently met with Eriksdale residents to talk about health care.
The health minister said they recognize the need to train more lab technologists, doctors and other workers in Eriksdale who may be more likely to stay in their home community, like Dr. Young.
The province has allocated over $300 million to health-care worker recruitment and retention in the 2024-25 budget, with an eye on improving the culture of the system to make it more appealing, said Asagwara.
"We have to really invest … in communities being able to grow their own," they said.
That's supported by the Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals, which represents lab technologists, respiratory therapists and other allied health workers.
Union president Jason Linklater said the province and Shared Health, which is responsible for health-care delivery in Manitoba, need to focus on the "chronic problem" of not posting jobs to meet needs.
"We know there are lab [technologist] students at Red River College who will be looking for work when they graduate," he said.
But "we don't see jobs posted even when we know there are staffing deficiencies across the board. What I am fearful of is if we lose these grads to other provinces."
The Interlake-Eastern Regional Health Authority says it's been actively recruiting by hosting events to "entice medical students to practice in rural communities."
A spokesperson said the health authority is expecting six internationally trained medical graduates to the region this summer. Two accepted positions at Lakeshore Hospital in Ashern already.
Aging community
In the meantime, there's an urgent need to boost health-care access within the aging community of Eriksdale.
Donna Kingsley, 75, has questioned whether she should leave her home of over 40 years and move to Winnipeg, where she'd be closer to more emergency care options.
But "the emergency care in Winnipeg is already overburdened," she said. "The other thing is, how can we encourage people to come live in our community if they don't have a health-care system?"
Dale Lloyd, 67, has a heart condition, as do some members of her family. She has friends who have had strokes or cancer. As they all age, the need for more care options is growing, she said.
Having worked at the Eriksdale hospital for so many years, Lloyd said she knows the hospital can provide life-saving emergency care, like it did for her 15 years ago. It just needs the right support.
"I've seen lives saved … lives that you didn't think were going to be saved, and it's urgent to get something happening back in our hospital," she said.
"Two days in two weeks doesn't cut it."