Ambulance line outside ER doesn’t mean long waits: WRHA

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This article was published 03/01/2018 (2451 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A photo showing a line-up of ambulances packing the entrance to the St. Boniface Hospital emergency department garnered so much online fury that the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority held a press conference Thursday to respond to an agitated public.

“This is what happens when government shuts down health care,” wrote Chrissy Novak in a caption accompanying the photo that shows at least half a dozen ambulances waiting outside. “Health care facilities, staff and patients are at risk!!”

It isn’t Novak’s photo, but rather one sent to her by a friend who works at the hospital; the quick photo was snapped to demonstrate mounting frustration. It was shared more than 1,200 times by 5 p.m. on Thursday, and there were also other photos of the same scene that were shared numerous times.

It’s not indicative of delays in care, said the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority’s acting chief operating officer, Lori Lamont, nor does she believe consolidation is the culprit.

“We expect that we will continue to see ambulance traffic at our emergency departments, that’s how we expect really sick people to get to the hospital.”

This is the region’s second press conference this week discussing its struggle under the weight of the current flu season. On the same day the photo was snapped, the region held a press conference to say it was introducing “over-capacity protocols” to cope with 1,110 laboratory-confirmed flu cases in the city, 60 of which are in the hospital and 10 of whom are in intensive care beds.

More staff and resources are needed, the region acknowledged, and a spokeswoman said two additional ambulances from the city’s fleet were put on the road that same day. The WRHA has an agreement with the city, she said, to confer daily to see if more become needed.

As for the ambulances in the photo, it’s unclear if any patients were actually inside at the time the photo was snapped. The spokeswoman said there were seven ambulances in question, one of which was from another regional health authority.

Of the six ambulances from the city, four were there to offload emergency patients, she said, while the other two were doing inter-facility transfers. It’s a process that doesn’t require the same speed or attention as emergency care, she said, and can sometimes mean an ambulance is outside a hospital for more than 45 minutes.

While the goal is to offload patients from ambulances within 30 minutes, Lamont said, the region only considers it a delay in care if it takes more than an hour to offload a patient. On the day the photo was reportedly taken, she said two ambulances did take more than 60 minutes, although it’s unclear if they were in the photo.

NDP health critic Andrew Swan said there’s been no shortage of health care workers sharing the photo with him since it was first posted.

“They’re saying it’s indicative of exactly what’s going on now in the system,” he said. “This is exactly what we feared and what people who work in the system feared. There’s tremendous pressure being put on St. Boniface and the other emergency rooms in the province.”

The photo likely gained momentum in part because of last month’s high-profile release of the Wait Times Task Force. The task force recommended the health authority delay the planned closures of the Seven Oaks General Hospital and Concordia Hospital ERs in order to build up capacity at other facilities, St. Boniface in particular.

“Piecemeal renovations” at St. Boniface won’t be adequate, the report said, noting substantial capital upgrades beyond the $3-million announced last year won’t be enough. It’s an issue the WRHA said at the time of the report’s release it would look at closely.

“It’s important to recognize both ambulances and people who bring themselves to the emergency department, don’t do so in an orderly or consistent fashion,” Lamont said, “so what looks very good one hour, can look pretty bad in half an hour.”

— with files from Maggie Macintosh

jane.gerster@freepress.mb.ca