BY ANDY BLATCHFORD

andy.blatchford@transcontinental.ca

The Lakeshore General Hospital advised people Monday to avoid its emergency ward for 24 hours, after mounting pressure on an array of local health services caught up with the institution.

A West Island Health and Social Services Centre spokesman says the regional domino effect of an unusually high number of emergency room visits, a chronic-care bed shortage and the ongoing dearth of family doctors caused the log jam.

“This is in the category of a last resort situation,” said HSSC spokesman Louis-Pascal Cyr. “We need a little break to be able to catch our breath.”

More than 60 people were on stretchers in the LGH’s emergency ward at one point last weekend, nearly double the room’s official capacity of 31, Cyr said.

The hospital is used to emergency congestion, where there are usually 35 to 40 people on stretchers waiting for a bed, he added.

But for the last few weeks the LGH has had over 45 patients on gurneys.

“Usually we can keep up for a while, but it’s been going on like that for a long time,” said Cyr.

On Monday, the emergency ward reached a high of 59 patients waiting for beds. The number stood at 55 patients as of yesterday morning

It’s the first time in at least two years the hospital has asked people to call Info-Santé for information before going to the emergency ward, he said. The phone service will redirect certain patients to walk-in clinics instead.

However, the main source of the backlog is a lack of chronic-care beds, and not the abuse of emergency ward, Cyr said.

Currently, there are about 60 long-term care patients in hospital beds waiting for a spot in a public institution.

“We have to keep them until they find a place,” Cyr said. “These people have nowhere to go. This is what clogs the emergency.”

Meanwhile, HSSC vice-chairman Nick Di Tomaso said the LGH is required to reserve 30 beds for chronic care, but it often fills as many as 90.

Some long-term patients wait as long as six months for a bed in a separate facility, he said.

“We have absolutely no place to put these people,” Di Tomaso said, adding little has changed in his 14 years on the hospital board. “The implications are quite significant.”

He said the squeeze has a ripple effect that also impacts surgeries.

The problem is amplified by the fact 25 per cent of West Islanders don’t have access to a family doctor, he said. Family practices “are jammed to the rafters,” Di Tomaso added.

Quebec recently created a family medicine group and a link to the private Statcare walk-in clinic.

But as the population ages, pressure on local health services are greater than ever, he said.

“It’s a shortage of everything,” said Di Tomaso, adding a local crisis, like a viral epidemic, would flood the system.

He said the HSSC has tried to make things work, but the funding isn’t there.

“It takes the government to solve it,” he added. “I reckon we could certainly use 100 beds.”