By paNOW

Saskatoon hospitals at capacity; patients staying longer

Sep 27, 2013 | 1:28 AM

Saskatoon hospitals are bursting at the seams with patients staying longer than normal.

As of Thursday, 55 people were waiting in emergency departments for beds and 80 people were waiting for long-term care.

The Saskatoon Health Region (SHR) activated its regional emergency response system to handle a record number of patients.

“We’re at an all time peak here,” SHR president Maura Davies said. “What we see is a lot of sick patients requiring hospital admission and we’re having difficulty getting them that care at the right place at the right time.”

Davies said hospitals haven’t seen an increase in people coming through the door; people are just staying in hospital longer.

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“We’re seeing what we would normally expect to see this time of the year and we’re also finding that we’re not admitting more patients, it’s just we’re having trouble getting them into the beds so they can get the care in the right place,” she said.

“Our acute care beds are full with a lot of people who really should be placed in community or long term care facilities.”

The SHR has dealt with multiple capacity issues this year. Davies said they hope to resolve the issue in a couple days. In January, SHR remained over capacity for more than a month.

Back in July, provincial Health Minister Dustin Duncan said the government will not set staff or bed quotas. He said the real solution is providing environments where seniors can stay in their own homes longer.

To alleviate stress, the region wants to open up more beds at City Hospital, discharge stable patients and move patients to other hospitals once they’ve received the specialized care they need. In some cases this would involve moving patients back to their hometown hospital.

Davies said the SHR has hired additional staff.

Some non-urgent and elective surgeries have been postponed to free up beds for patients in need of more urgent care.

Davies said the region is working to find long term solutions to capacity problems such as increasing primary care like family physicians so residents can avoid the emergency room, increasing long term care capacity or having less critical patients receive care from home.

No one will be turned away but the region asks only those with true emergencies to use the emergency department. Residents can consult their family doctor to find out if they need to go to the hospital.

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