Only a quarter of rural, northern Manitoba ERs will be reliably open 24/7 this month: Doctors Manitoba
Advocacy organization warns patients should check local ER schedules to prepare for any possible emergency
The organization representing doctors in Manitoba is warning about potential emergency room closures in the province's rural and northern areas in December, saying three out of four of those ERs are expected to have issues staying open 24/7 during the holiday season.
The number of ERs that are open 24/7 is getting worse, not better, Dr. Nichelle Desilets, a rural family physician and president-elect of Doctors Manitoba, said at a Tuesday morning news conference.
"Our review has found that fewer ERs appear to be open this December than December last year," she said.
According to the review of December schedules, 24 of Manitoba's emergency rooms will have limited hours or frequent closures and 28 ERs are fully closed, while 18 ERs are scheduled to be open 24/7, according to Doctors Manitoba.
"For the 18 hospitals that are reliably open 24/7 this holiday, we know that many of those are open by a thread," Desilets told reporters.
Many departments, which are usually filled by staff working overtime or locum staff from other areas, are at risk of closing due to severe staffing shortages, she said, noting that having one or two people missing on a shift is enough to close most ERs in the province.
"It just takes very little to flip a facility into no longer having those blanket 24-hour services," Desilets said. Some rural hospitals are filling missing shifts with temporary staff from Winnipeg, but don't have permanent staffing yet.
"We just need more bodies. We need more physicians, we need more nurses, we need other allied health-care workers," said Desilets. "We just need more people so that there is a little bit of a buffer."
There are 70 hospitals in Manitoba, some of which have had their ERs permanently or temporarily closed, said Desilets, which adds extra pressure on neighbouring hospitals.
When an ER is closed, nearby hospitals often don't have the additional resources or staff to compensate, she said.
Jason Linklater, president of the Manitoba Association of Healthcare Professionals, said keeping ERs open is going to be a challenge.
"Manitoba absolutely remains dangerously short on lab techs, x-ray techs, all of the different types of imaging techs and paramedics ... In all of these professions, there just isn't a buffer. And we are already running thin," Linklater told CBC News.
Retention issues
Linklater said any further reduction in staffing means reduced services, and over the past 10 years there has been a continuous drop in staffing in rural Manitoba.
Allied health professionals are also the only sector in health care without a contract, Linklater said, which adds to retention and recruitment challenges.
Provinces like Saskatchewan, Linklater said, have incentives for health-care workers to be hired and stay, causing Manitoba health-care workers to be poached by other provinces.
"It's been said that you can't recruit your way out of a retention crisis. And I think that nails it on the head in terms of where we are at, here in Manitoba. We are in a retention crisis," Linklater said.
Linklater is calling on the province to start a competitive HR plan, and introduce incentives for recruitment and retention. The consequences of not doing that, he said, can be dire especially during busy seasons when shortages can be rampant.
"Having worked in a hospital for almost 30 years, I can tell you that we know when those busy times hit, and certainly we're entering into one of those times again shortly."
Plan ahead
Doctors Manitoba is advising patients to plan ahead and make sure they know what to do in an emergency by checking local ER schedules for the holiday season, or the schedules for areas they may be visiting. The advocacy group has launched a rural care website, with links to find local schedules.
"Find out the nearest emergency room to the place you are visiting, and maybe even find out the next nearest emergency room where you are visiting," Desilets said.
Patients who go to ERs should also bring a list of medications they're on, which helps provide better and faster care, since doctors don't have access to that information, she said.
In a statement to CBC News, Prairie Mountain Health said recruitment efforts to staff emergency rooms are underway, and that emergency department schedules are comparable to previous years.
The statement says that health-care facilities "can face staffing challenges due to a combination of staff leaves, vacations and vacancies. Our top priority is to ensure that every patient gets the care they need, and every effort is made to avoid any temporary suspensions."
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With files from Chelsea Kemp