Not just Langley: B.C. doctors say emergency departments across province on 'red alert'

The "near catastrophic" situation at Langley Memorial Hospital's emergency department, first reported by CTV News this week, is just one example of what B.C. doctors say is a provincial crisis.

The "dire" and "unsafe" conditions in the Langley department were highlighted in a memo sent by Dr. Jeff Plante in which he urged his colleagues in Fraser Health not to send patients to the hospital, saying the facility was "overrun" due to an influx of patients and that staffing shortages on wards have led to very sick people being warehoused in the ED.

On Wednesday, Doctors of BC issued a statement saying the issues raised in the memo are not isolated to Langley and that they are shining a spotlight on the untenable and potentially dangerous situation unfolding at hospitals across the province.

“Our emergency departments are on red alert,” Dr. Gord McInnes, co-president of the Section of Emergency Medicine, wrote.

“Our patients are suffering, and the doctors struggling to provide their care are tired and distressed. Our patients need and deserve better. They deserve to know that they will be safe, and that they will be cared for when they go to an emergency department for help. The dire situation we are facing now cannot continue.”

The statement says it's become common for patients to wait eight hours to see a doctor and to spend between 24 and 48 hours in the ED before being transferred to a ward. During these waits, according to the organization, patients' conditions too often deteriorate.

"Research shows that after six hours of waiting in the emergency department for care, mortality and morbidity increase by 10 per cent," the statement says.

While addressing a lack of capacity and staffing shortages will take time, Doctors of BC says there are measures that the province and health authorities can and should take immediately to help ease the strain.

First, the organization would like to see doctors and nurses "empowered" to declare a "code orange." Reserved for mass casualties or disasters, provincial guidance says this can not be done in cases where there is "overcapacity or gridlock in an emergency department." But Doctors of BC says being able to call a code orange would allow frontline staff to move patients out of the ED once it has reached its "critical limit," and would give health-care workers "the space to assess, diagnose, and initiate treatment."

Second, the group is advocating for a process that would see "acutely ill" patients from the ED moved in to rooms with recovered patients who are close to being discharged.

Notwithstanding the pressures on the system, Doctors of BC says anyone who needs emergency care should not hesitate to seek treatment.