Queens General Hospital. Photo Ed Halverson

Difficulty attracting new doctors is one of the factors that contributed to the closures experienced by the Queens General Hospital Emergency department over the past couple of weeks.

This was the first time since the hospital opened a doctor couldn’t be found to work the shift.

But chair of the Queens General Hospital Foundation Al Doucet says the issue extends beyond the emergency room.

“The problem is that there’s not enough supply of health professionals and that’s just not physicians. It’s nurses, it’s CNAs, it’s LPNs, it’s lab technologists, it’s across the board,” said Doucet. “To look after our population that is aging, we have not been able to keep up the supply of health professions that are needed.”

Doucet has been recruiting doctors to Queens for the better part of 40 years and says the pandemic has thrown a wet blanket on their efforts.

“One of the things you do with recruiting, you want to bring people into the communities so they get a feel of where they would want to move and work, and with COVID, we couldn’t do that,” said Doucet. “We couldn’t bring people in, so for almost two years, it’s really stymied our recruitment abilities.”

Doucet says overall, the provincial healthcare system is struggling to keep up with demand, and because so many Nova Scotians don’t have access to primary care, they are now turning to the emergency room for treatment. But many general practitioners who take shifts in the ER find it difficult to then spend the day seeing patients in the office.

“In the past the emergency departments used to be seen more for just emergencies, so the people manning it could at least get a rest while they were doing it then have an office the next day. That can’t happen anymore,” said Doucet. “Our emergency departments are pretty steady because people don’t have family doctors so they have no other option but to go to the emergency department.”

Doucet has also seen a shift in the way medical schools train doctors.

He would like to see those schools return to the methods he was taught, where doctors were trained as generalists before deciding to move into a specialty.

“One of the good things about that was, that the specialists that came from that kind of a training environment understood what it was like to work in family practice, understood what it was like to have people referred to them. They had a much broader understanding so they didn’t become very narrow in their scope of practice. They looked at the patient more as a whole,” said Doucet.

He says the problems with the healthcare system are complex and likens the situation to a pyramid, with primary care as the base and other specialized care piled on top.

“In the last eight years I don’t think the emphasis has been on the bottom of that pyramid. There’s been a lot of emphasis on other things and those other things are important, I don’t minimize that,” said Doucet. “But fixing the bottom of that pyramid in the last eight years has not been the primary focus and I think that’s why we’re in the situation we’re in now.”

Reported by Ed Halverson 
E-mail: edhalversonnews@gmail.com
Twitter: @edwardhalverson

To listen to the broadcast of this story, press play below.

Queens General Hospital. Photo Ed Halverson

Monday marked the first time in 73 years the doors closed at the Queens General Hospital emergency department.

A release from the Nova Scotia Health Authority attributed the closure to lack of physician availability.

The ER closure took many residents by surprise but Western Zone Medical Executive Director Dr. Cheryl Pugh says they’re not uncommon.

“Unfortunately it’s not an unusual occurrence across the province, to experience a closure,” said Pugh. “Although we work hard to prevent these closures from happening, it is unfortunately, a sign that we are working hard to support our people who are unavailable for a variety of reasons.”

Residents of neighbouring Shelburne County know all too well the difficulty of keeping an emergency room open.

Roseway Hospital struggles regularly to find staff to keep their ER up and running.

Pugh wouldn’t elaborate on what specifically dictated the need to close the Queens ER for the first time since it opened in 1948.

“In this particular instance, we did not have all the pieces of the puzzle to provide access to safe care which necessitated a closure at that site,” said Pugh.

She says the health authority makes every effort to ensure every emergency room across Nova Scotia remains open.

“Any upcoming closures, we reach out, far and wide across the zone and the province, in an attempt to recruit individuals who are interested in covering that particular shift, when it’s a physician issue.”

Pugh says Queens residents can still receive emergency care at one of the three major hospitals in the Western Zone. That would mean a one to three hour drive to either: Bridgewater, Kentville or Yarmouth.

Pugh says in the event someone needed to be taken by ambulance, paramedics would communicate with EHS dispatch to determine which location was appropriate depending on the type and severity of the medical emergency.

The emergency department at Queens General Hospital is closed again Tuesday night from 6:00pm until 8:00am Wednesday morning.

Anyone with urgent medical needs should call 911. To speak to a registered nurse about general health advice and information, call 811.

The Mental Health Crisis Line can also be reached anytime by calling 1-888-429-8167.

Reported by Ed Halverson 
E-mail: edhalversonnews@gmail.com
Twitter: @edwardhalverson

To listen to the broadcast of this story, press play below.