St. Thomas Elgin General Hospital is asking the public to be patient as it deals with “escalating” staff shortages and a crushing surge of patients flocking to the emergency room.
St. Thomas Elgin General Hospital is asking the public to be patient as it deals with “escalating” staff shortages and a crushing surge of patients flocking to the emergency room.
The hospital’s woes — which come as rural hospitals provincewide close or cut hours at emergency rooms due to staff shortages — are the result of tangle of pandemic-related staffing issues, intense demand for medical services and long-term, systemic problems in Ontario’s health- care system, the hospital’s president and chief executive said.
“We’re taking it on a shift-by-shift basis right now. We’re seeing significantly higher numbers of patients coming to the emergency department,” Karen Davies said Tuesday.
“It’s not just the emergency department that is suffering and struggling. It’s the intensive care unit, the medical units, it’s all of them.”
The hospital took to Twitter Monday to warn the public about potentially long ER waits this week and its critical staff crunch, the result of several overlapping issues that have been made worse by the pandemic, Davies said.
COVID-19 cases among staff during the seventh wave of COVID-19 have forced many off the job at a time when scheduled summer vacations are already putting pressure on the staff roster, Davies said.
Some health-care workers have chosen to retire or leave the sector in the last two years and the ones who remain are facing burnout, she added.
“The attrition rates are high, and to replace regulated health-care providers takes a long time,” said Davies, adding the hospital has been hiring “continuously” since the start of the pandemic.
On top of the staff shortages, the St. Thomas hospital is seeing a flood of patients coming through its doors, leading to hours-long emergency room waits for many less urgent patients, Davies said.
Since the start of July, the hospital is averaging about 160 patients a day in its emergency room, sometimes reaching up to 200, Davies said. Its emergency room is only built and funded to handle about 130 daily patient visits.
Pre-pandemic, the hospital would average 10 to 16 ambulance arrivals each day. So far this month it’s getting an average of 25 a day, sometimes reaching the high 30s, Davies said.
The emergency room is also seeing more patients travel from London looking for care, she said.
“It’s been doubling in recent months,” Davies said.
London Health Sciences Center said it is seeing higher than typical patient volume in its emergency rooms and is facing staff constraints with the arrival of the seventh wave.
“Our team is doing what we can while still offering the best care possible to all our patients,” LHSC said in a statement. “We are expanding our physical footprint, hiring additional staff and using virtual urgent care for patients with lower acuity.”
LHSC reported 151 staff COVID-19 cases Tuesday, far off the fifth-wave peak in January when the hospital had more than 500 staff cases. At the time, hospitals across the province were canceling surgeries due to high staff absenteeism during the Omicron surge.
LHSC is caring for 26 COVID-19 patients, with five or fewer in intensive care. Of the 26 patients, 21 are in hospital for another health condition but have tested positive for the virus.