Stollery Children’s Hospital may have to pause admissions due to lack of staff

December 21, 2024 Canuck

The Stollery Children’s Hospital may have to cap admissions over the holidays because of a lack of doctors.

In an emailed statement, Alberta Health Services said that the Stollery will have gaps for three nights as physician shifts go unfilled, but added it is trying to fill the shifts.

“If these shifts remain unfilled and the number of admitted internal medicine patients exceeds 50, the surge teams may need to temporarily pause new internal medicine admissions overnight,” the statement reads, in part.

“In such a scenario, patients would continue to receive care in the emergency department until they can be admitted the next morning.”

AHS said the hospital is seeing an increase in patients presenting with respiratory conditions, which it said is consistent with seasonal trends.

It’s a worrying scenario to Dr. Tehseen Ladha, a pediatrician and assistant professor in pediatrics at the University of Alberta.

“As soon as we have a limit on in-patients, pediatric patients, that trickles down to the emergency room,” she said in an interview with CBC News.

“What ends up happening is that patients are waiting in the emergency room for their beds … And that in turn leads to extremely long waits in the emergency room.”

AHS said in its statement that caring for patients in the emergency room if they’re unable to be admitted is a “common and effective approach” when there is increased demand or staffing issues.

Ladha said it’s worrisome when patients can’t flow through the system like they’re supposed to because it can lead to deterioration of their condition if they are waiting too long for care.

Another factor is family doctors’ offices being closed over the holidays, which pushes more kids to the Stollery for things that can usually be dealt with by a family physician, like an ear infection, strep throat, or mild pneumonia, Ladha said.

Ladha said it’s one of the worst years she’s seen in terms of the number of children being admitted to the Stollery.

Dr. Warren Thirsk works in the emergency room at the Royal Alexandra Hospital, and also is the emergency medicine section president for the Alberta Medical Association.

“The idea that we can turn off the tap, that we can stop the flow of patients and their health care needs, is one that people who are administering a system that is failing would like to believe is possible and those of us on the front line believe is problematic,” he said in an interview.

Thirsk agreed that the risks are highest for patients waiting for care.

“During this time, we hope you don’t get worse and if you collapse or something bad happens to you in the waiting room, then we’ll do our best to respond at that time,” he said.

“You’re basically gambling with people and their health care issues that they’re not going to get worse in a way that leads to tragedy.”

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