The emergency department at Queens General Hospital in Liverpool will be closed Friday. (Communications Nova Scotia)
The emergency department at Queens General Hospital in Liverpool is closed Friday.
Nova Scotia Health issued a notice Thursday night that the ER would be closed temporarily until Mon., March 17 at 8 a.m. It gave no reason for the closure.
On Feb. 27, the department announced new “expanded and consistent” hours for the Liverpool ER. It would be open 24 hours a day from Mondays at 8 a.m. until Fridays at 1:30 p.m. and closed on weekends.
Leslie Oliver, the executive director of community and rural health in the western zone for Nova Scotia Health, told QCCR at the time that the new hours would provide patients with reliability.
“We don’t have any plans of going back to an inconsistent coverage schedule.”
Virtual urgent care is still available at the hospital from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. seven days a week.
Liverpool won’t have local emergency department services available on weekends, but it will have 24-hour service through the week.
Nova Scotia Health announced Thursday that it is introducing “expanded and consistent hours” for the Queens General Hospital emergency department.
Beginning March 1, the ER in Liverpool will be open for 24 hours from Mondays at 8 a.m. to Fridays at 1:30 p.m. It will close on Fridays at 1:30 p.m. until Mondays at 8 a.m.
Nova Scotia Health says the change increases the department’s weekly operating hours from about 35 to 101.5 hours.
Leslie Oliver, the executive director of community and rural health in the western zone for Nova Scotia Health, told QCCR on Friday that the new ER schedule in Liverpool will provide more service for patients.
“This temporary schedule that was developed in collaboration with the emergency staff and physicians really will be tripling the amount of hours that the emergency department is open for our community. This is a positive news story for our community.”
In the past few years, the emergency department at Queens General has been hit regularly with temporary closures.
Oliver says the new schedule will allow for better co-ordination with other hospital departments such as laboratory, diagnostic imaging and pharmacy services.
She said virtual urgent care for certain conditions like prescription refills, urinary tract infections or coughs and sore throats will still be available at the hospital seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. A triage nurse will be on duty for that service during those times.
“And a great number of the patients in the community who are presenting for the emergency department they’re actually appropriate for that virtual urgent care stream so we would encourage them to take advantage of that opportunity as well.”
Oliver said there is still a significant nurse shortage in the department.
“We’ve been really committed to our recruitment efforts and that’s not going to change,” she said. “We want to make sure we have Nova Scotia nurses working within our emergency department for sure.”
She said they plan to stick with this schedule until they can hire enough staff to return the Queens General ER to a 24/7 operation.
“We’re hoping to provide this consistent ongoing coverage for the next several months, hoping to have more success in the recruitment area with more physicians coming on board and more nurses to support the department. We don’t have any plans of going back to an inconsistent coverage schedule. Our goal is to have that Queens emergency department open 24/7, 365 days a year.”
The emergency department at Queens General Hospital in Liverpool. (Rick Conrad photo)
The emergency department at Queens General Hospital in Liverpool will be on reduced hours until Tuesday.
It will be closed:
from 1:30 p.m. Friday, February 14, and reopen Saturday, February 15 at 8 a.m.
from 1:30 p.m. Sunday, February 16 and reopen Monday, February 17 at 8 a.m.
from 1:30 p.m. Monday, February 17 and reopen Tuesday, February 18 at 8 a.m.
Virtual urgent care is available at Queens General seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. That’s only for certain things such as prescription refills, sinus congestion, coughs and sore throat, urinary tract infections, skin concerns, bites and stings, and mild or moderate aches and pains.
The ER at South Shore General Hospital in Bridgewater will be open.
Morgan Sampson, echocardiogram technician, and Queens General Hospital Foundation trustees Kelly Whalen, Kerry Morash, Janice Reynolds and Al Doucet with the new echocardiogram at Queens General Hospital in Liverpool. (Queens General Hospital Foundation photo)
Queens County residents will be able to stay closer to home for vital testing, thanks to an investment by the Queens General Hospital Foundation.
The foundation recently invested almost $400,000 to install a new echocardiogram and cardiopulmonary exercise testing machine at Queens General in Liverpool.
Al Doucet, a retired physician who is chairman of the hospital foundation, said that means that cardiologists and internal medicine specialists can now see more people here.
“They’re significant because they bring to Liverpool testing that otherwise was not available anywhere else, people had to travel for this,” Doucet told QCCR.
“But also, people that are in hospital, that are hospital patients, this equipment, especially the echocardiogram, it’s movable so that it can go up to the floors where people are sick so they don’t even have to come out of their hospital rooms and we can also use it on people who are sick in the emergency department.”
Queens General already has stress-testing equipment that involves patients using a treadmill to measure the heart’s response to physical activity.
But the new equipment uses a stationary bike to measure the response of your lungs as well. Internal medicine specialist Dr. Jeff Ratushny, who is based in Bridgewater, has a special interest in pulmonary stress testing, Doucet said.
“So this is an upgrade on our stress-testing equipment to add the pulmonary component to it. And that was really because Dr. Rathushny has a special interest in that. For our health professionasl that we have here, we want to give them the equipment that they need and that they want to give them the ability to come here and stay.”
The echocardiogram cost $275,000, while the exercise testing equipment cost $93,000. Those were just two of the significant contributions to health care in Queens County made by the foundation in the past year.
It has donated more than $1 million for equipment, training and other things to help attract more health professionals to the area and to make health care more accessible locally.
“Our mandate does not confine us to just the hospital. But everything that we look at it’s in the lens of how can we make this a better place to live for people, how can we make it the best place for care, how can we put the best equipment in that we can retain professionals that are coming to work here.”
The foundation is also contributing $725,000 toward the establishment of a new MRI machine at South Shore Regional Hospital in Bridgewater.
And Doucet said they’re investing up to $3.5 million in a new CT scanner at Queens General. He said they’re working with Nova Scotia Health to recruit the technicians to staff that equipment properly.
The foundation relies on donations and investments to fund its work. Doucet said its volunteer board of trustees is concerned about financing projects big and small.
Whether that’s a new floor-cleaning machine, doing things to help staff morale or sprucing up the outside of the hospital with art and gardens, he said it’s all part of making Queens General a better place to work and visit.
“There’s very few hospitals that you’ll see flowers that are blooming at the front door. So we want to make the hospital not so clinical and not so sterile. We want it to be an inviting place so that it reduces the anxiety people have as they come in.”
Doucet said the foundation has helped recruit six physicians to the area in the past two years. And thanks to things like their online presence, they’re also attracting other professionals like nurses to the area.
But he said there’s more to do. That’s why they continue to recruit with the goal of having the Queens General ER return to being open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
“The way it used to be when I was practising and the way it is now, things have definitely changed and we have to adapt to it. So having the foundation makes it at least easier for us to do that.”
For more information on the Queens General Hospital Foundation, visit their website at qghfoundation.ca, or their medical recruitment site at doctors-wanted.ca.
The emergency department at Queens General Hospital in Liverpool will be closed on Sunday. (Communications Nova Scotia)
The emergency department at Queens General Hospital in Liverpool will have reduced hours for the next few days.
It will close at 1:30 p.m. today (Friday) and reopen Saturday at 8 a.m. It will be closed again on Saturday at 1:30 p.m., all day Sunday and reopen on Mon., Dec. 30 at 8 a.m.
It will close again on Monday at 1:30 p.m. and reopen Tues., Dec. 31 at 8 a.m.
Virtual urgent care for certain things is available at Queens General Monday to Friday, from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and on weekends from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
The ER at South Shore Regional Hospital in Bridgewater will be open.
Nova Scotia Health advises anyone experiencing a medical emergency to call 911.
Patients of Queens Family Health can access the same-day clinic through the week for new health problems that require urgent treatment. Hours are based on provider availability. Clinic patients can call 902-354-3322 to book an appointment.
The ER at South Shore Regional Hospital in Bridgewater will be open.
Patients of Queens Family Health can access the same-day clinic, depending on provider availability, by calling 902-354-3322.
A mobile primary care clinic is scheduled to be at Queens General on Tuesday (July 30) from 1 to 4 p.m., Wednesday (July 31) from 1 to 4 p.m. and on Thursday (Aug. 1) from 9 a.m. to noon.
The emergency department at Queens General Hospital in Liverpool will be closed at various times this weekend. (Communications Nova Scotia)
The emergency department at Queens General Hospital in Liverpool will be on limited hours for the weekend and early next week.
It will be closed on Friday, Saturday (July 20), Sunday (July 21), Monday (July 22) and Tuesday (July 23) at 1:30 p.m. each day and reopen at 8 a.m. the next day.
For example, it will reopen on Saturday at 8 a.m., but close again at 1:30 a.m. and reopen Sunday at 8 a.m.
The ER at South Shore Regional Hospital in Bridgewater will be open.
Nova Scotia Health says that anybody experiencing a medical emergency should call 911.
Patients of the Queens Family Health same-day clinic can call 902-354-3322 to book an appointment through the week for new and emerging health problems, depending on provider availability.
You can also talk to a nurse for general health advice by calling 811, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The emergency department at Queens General Hospital in Liverpool will be closed at certain times this week.
It closed at 1:30 p.m. on Monday and will reopen Tuesday at 8 a.m. It will close again on Tuesday at 1:30 p.m. and reopen Wednesday at 8 a.m.
Patients of Queens Family Health can call 902-354-3322 to access the same-day clinic, depending on provider availability.
The ER at South Shore Regional Hospital in Bridgewater will be open.
As of June 1, 1,100 people in Queens County, about 10 per cent of the population, were still without a doctor or nurse practitioner. In Bridgewater, 6,382 people were on the waitlist. That’s almost 23 per cent of their population.
