The emergency department at Queens General Hospital in Liverpool will be closed for the rest of Thursday and will reopen at midnight and be open on Friday.
It will close again for the weekend at 5 a.m. Saturday and reopen on Tuesday at 8 a.m.
Nova Scotia Health is setting up a mobile primary care clinic at the hospital on Saturday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. It will be at the Queen’s Family Health location.
It is a drop-in clinic, so you don’t have to call ahead.
The emergency department at South Shore Regional Hospital in Bridgewater will be open. Patients of Queens Family Health with new or emerging problems can access the same-day clinic through the week at 902-354-3322.
Kim Masland, Queens MLA and Nova Scotia’s Public Works Minister, says chronic ER closures in her riding are worrisome. (Rick Conrad photo)
By Rick Conrad
Queens MLA Kim Masland says the Nova Scotia government is making progress in its efforts to keep the emergency department at Queens General Hospital open more often, but she admits there’s more work to do.
“I know right now we’ve been open pretty much 50 per cent of the time which is very, very concerning,” Masland said in an interview this week.
“We need to make sure that our ER is open and available to people when they need it. We’re 30 minutes away from Bridgewater, we’re further away to the next ER.”
She pointed to efforts by the Queens General Hospital Foundation and Nova Scotia Health recruiters to bring more health care workers to the area.
“We are making progress. We’ve recruited six (ER and family practice) doctors in the last year which is absolutely fabulous. But it’s a staffing issue. We need to make sure that we can recruit and then retain. So we’ll keep working at it.”
Masland and Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston were asked about the ER closures during a Q&A session at an event in Liverpool on Wednesday organized by the South Queens Chamber of Commerce.
The ER in Liverpool was closed all last weekend. And this week, it is open most days only from 8 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. It will be closed all day Saturday. According to Nova Scotia Health, the ER was closed for part or all of the day for 13 days in November, 15 in December and 15 in January. A Nova Scotia Health official told QCCR in January that the Queens General ER needs 10 more nurses to be open more often.
Houston told the crowd Wednesday that the province has made many changes to how health care is delivered. He pointed to the expanded scope of practice for many health care workers, including pharmacists, nurse practitioners and others who are now able to do more of the duties once restricted to doctors.
“Our pharmacies did, since we started opening up this access path, almost 19,000 strep tests over the last three or four months. I can tell you where pretty much every one of those 19,000 people would have went if not for a pharmacy.
“So we’re really trying to mobilize everyone. … Then we can take a little bit of pressure off everyone else. And if we can take a little pressure off everyone else, then we can start to attract more people who want to be part of an innovative, leading edge health care system.”
Houston said that while there’s no quick fix, it’s important that people know that they don’t always have to wait in an ER for treatment.
“So we want to make sure that everyone knows where they can go to access the health care that they need. And it might be the emergency department and we want it to be open, but it doesn’t always have to be the emergency department for everything … when there’s something else that will work just as effectively.”
Masland says the province’s focus is on recruiting more health care professionals to the area.
“We’re very committed to improving health care and that’s where our focus is going to remain.”
The emergency department at Queens General Hospital in Liverpool is on restricted hours until next week. (Rick Conrad photo)
By Rick Conrad
The emergency department at Queens General Hospital in Liverpool will be on restricted hours until next Wednesday (Feb. 14).
It will be open most days this week from 8 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. It will be open all day Thursday (Feb. 8) at 8 a.m. It will be closed at 1:30 p.m. Friday, all of Saturday, and reopen Sunday at 8 a.m.
Here is when the ER will be closed this week, according to Nova Scotia Health:
from 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 6 and reopens Wednesday, Feb. 7 at 8 a.m.
from 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 7 and reopens Thursday. Feb. 8 at 8 a.m.
from 1:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 9 and reopens Sunday, Feb. 11 at 8 a.m.
from 1:30 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 11 and reopens Monday, Feb. 12 at 8 a.m.
from 1:30 p.m. Monday, Feb. 12 and reopens Tuesday, Feb. 13 at 8 a.m.
from 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 13 and reopens Wednesday, Feb. 14 at 8 a.m.
The ER at South Shore Regional Hospital in Bridgewater will be open.
Patients of Queens Family Health can call 902-354-3322 for same-day treatment for certain conditions.
According to the latest numbers from Nova Scotia Health, as of January, 1,113 people in Queens County were still looking for a family doctor or nurse practitioner. That’s about 10 per cent of the population.
The emergency department at Queens General Hospital will be closed at 1:30 p.m. Friday for the whole weekend and reopen Monday at 8 a.m.
Earlier Thursday, Nova Scotia Health said the ER would be closed from Thursday morning (Feb. 1) and reopen Friday morning before closing again Friday afternoon for the whole weekend.
But in an advisory sent after 5 p.m., it amended the ER’s hours, saying it reopened at 4 p.m. on Thursday.
Nova Scotia Health did not give a reason for the temporary closure. The emergency department at South Shore Regional Hospital in Bridgewater will remain open.
The ER at Queens General was closed for part or all of the day for 13 days in November, 15 in December and 15 in January. A Nova Scotia Health official told QCCR in January that staffing is the main reason.
The ER at Roseway Hospital in Shelburne is also open.
Patients of Queens Family Health can call for same-day appointments for certain conditions at 902-354-3322.
If you’re still waiting to be assigned a doctor or nurse practitioner, Nova Scotia Health says you can also access VirtualCareNS.
The Mental Health and Addictions Crisis Line is also available any time by calling 1-888-429-8167.
The emergency department at Queens General Hospital in Liverpool. (Rick Conrad photo)
By Rick Conrad
The emergency department at Queens General Hospital in Liverpool will be closed today from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Nova Scotia Health gave no reason for the temporary closure. This will be the 13th time this month that the emergency department has been closed for all or part of the day.
A Nova Scotia Health official told QCCR last week that the ER has a “significant” staff vacancy rate and needs to hire 10 more nurses. She did not know how many more doctors are needed.
The emergency department at South Shore Regional Hospital in Bridgewater is open. Or Nova Scotia Health suggests calling 911 if you have a medical emergency. For general health advice and information, call 811.
Patients of Queens Family Health can also call the same-day clinic at Queens General at 902-354-3322.
If you’re on the Need a Family Practice Registry, you can access VirtualCareNS.
Staffing shortages are once again being blamed for ongoing temporary closures at the emergency department at Queens General Hospital in Liverpool.
Darlene Davis, the executive director for community and rural health for Nova Scotia Health’s western zone, said Thursday it boils down to not enough doctors or nurses, despite hiring efforts to bolster the Queens ER in the past year.
“We have seen more frequent closures than we’d like to see in the ED department, certainly,” she said in an interview.
“We’re constantly in a position of recruitment. And it is a challenge to try to keep staff onboarded. People leave for a variety of reasons, so whether it’s retirement or they’re relocating or just looking for other opportunities.”
The ER was closed from Wednesday morning at 11:30 to Thursday at 8 a.m. It closed again later Thursday at 1:30 p.m. and will reopen Friday morning at 8. It will remain open until Sunday at 5 a.m., when it will close until Monday at 8 a.m.
According to numbers provided by Nova Scotia Health, temporary closures affected the Queens General emergency department for 13 days in November, 15 in December, and 10 so far in January. Those were usually closures for part of the day, but some were full-day closures.
Davis said nurses are a key component to keeping the ER open. Queens General needs to hire 10 more in its emergency department alone. She didn’t know how many more doctors are needed.
“We have a significant vacancy rate there. We do add folks and we’ve got people who are leaving at the same time, so the bottom line is we need to continue to put our efforts toward recruitment and that’s our highest priority right now.”
Davis said ER schedules are planned at least four to eight weeks in advance, but they’re addressed on a daily basis.
“We certainly don’t plan to be closed. We plan to be open. And our goal is to provide as much reliability consistency as we possibly can to the community. So we’re striving to fill those shifts every day. Our goal is to be open seven days a week.”
People who need emergency care can go to the ER at South Shore Regional Hospital in Bridgewater, or call 911.
Patients of Queens Family Health can also access the same-day clinic for certain conditions by calling 902-354-3322.
The Mental Health and Addictions crisis line is available 24 hours a day at 1-888-429-8167.
The emergency department at Queens General Hospital in Liverpool will be closed for certain hours this week. (Rick Conrad photo)
By Rick Conrad
The emergency department at Queens General Hospital in Liverpool will be closed for the second time this week.
Nova Scotia Health sent out a news release at noon on Wednesday. They gave no reason for the temporary closures.
The ER closed Wednesday at 11:30 a.m. and will reopen Thursday at 8 a.m. It will close again later Thursday at 1:30 p.m. and reopen Friday at 8 a.m. It will remain open until Sunday at 5 a.m., when it will close until Monday at 8 a.m.
According to numbers provided by Nova Scotia Health, temporary closures affected the Queens General emergency department for 13 days in November, 15 in December, and nine so far in January. Those were usually closures for part of the day, but some were full-day closures.
The emergency department at South Shore Regional Hospital in Bridgewater remains open.
Nova Scotia Health is telling patients to call 911 if they have a medical emergency. Patients of Queens Family Health can also access the same-day clinic for certain conditions by calling 902-354-3322.
The Mental Health and Addictions crisis line is available 24 hours a day at 1-888-429-8167.
The emergency department at the Queens General Hospital in Liverpool will be closed for parts of next Monday and Tuesday.
The ER will close Jan. 15 at 1:30 p.m. and reopen Jan. 16 at 8 a.m. It will close again at 1:30 p.m. on Jan. 16 and reopen Wed., Jan. 17 at 8 a.m.
Nova Scotia Health gave no reason for the temporary closure.
The government’s annual emergency department accountability report, released in December, showed that the emergency department at Queens General was closed for about 50 per cent of the time in the period from April 1, 2022 to March 31, 2023. It was closed for a total of 4,374.5 hours and open for 4,385.5 hours.
The Queens General Hospital has added staff in the past year to help keep the department open more often.
Exterior of Queens General Hospital. Photo Ed Halverson
Queens General Hospital will be welcoming four new family medicine residents over the next two years.
One resident starting in August another in December and two more joining next year will each spend 5 months training alongside family medicine doctors in Queens.
The influx of student doctors is part of the Dalhousie Family Medicine Residency Satellite program being operated in partnership with Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia Health, and the Queens General Hospital Foundation.
Doctor Tarah Millen practices on the South Shore and helps mentor residents.
She says a residency in a rural area helps patients get access to medical care and provides residents with learning opportunities they may not get in a larger centre.
“Lots more hands-on because there’s many learners in the city and here there’s less amounts of learners and they can get lots of hand-on experience with wonderful physicians and preceptors.”
Millen says that hands on experience will extend to many corners of the hospital.
“They’ll be working with the family doctors who work at Queens General Hospital. They’ll be spending time with them doing a variety of things including clinic, emergency room, hospitalist, and long-term care facility.”
Dr Amy McMullin works at Queens General and says the partnerships between Nova Scotia Health and the Queens General Hospital Foundation have made it possible to accommodate these additional residents.
“The foundation has been a huge support for the past year or two. They’ve been developing call room space for residents as well they have helped renovate our procedure clinic on the second floor and they’ve been really supportive, hand in hand with Nova Scotia health,” said McMullin. “And they’ve also helped us find housing for the residents while they’re here. So, they’ve been immense support we couldn’t have done it without them.”
The goal of the satellite residency program is to provide a look at what life looks like in rural areas in the hopes some of today’s residents will choose to call Queens home when they begin their practice.
Residents of Queens will have the chance to bring their healthcare concerns to those directly responsible when the department of Health and Wellness listening tour stops at the Best Western in Liverpool this month.
Health and Wellness Minister Michelle Thompson, Deputy Minister Jeannine Lagassé and Nova Scotia Health interim CEO Karen Oldfield are holding conversations in communities across Nova Scotia about the work underway to improve the healthcare system.
In a release announcing the events the department of health and wellness says participants will be able to ask questions and hear directly from those responsible for making change happen.
The health department issued a release Tuesday announcing the Emergency Department at Queens General Hospital will be closed for most of the week leading up to the event.
The ED will close Tuesday and Wednesday night, February 7 and 8. It will close again for the weekend beginning Friday at 1:30pm reopening Sunday morning at 8am then closing again at 1:30pm Sunday until 8am Monday morning.
The department will close again Tuesday afternoon until the morning of Wednesday the 15th.
Anyone wishing to attend the community engagement session will need to register in advance.
Those who can’t be there in person can forward questions that will be discussed at the event by submitting them through the online registration link.
The listening tour will be held at the Best Western in Liverpool on Friday February 17 from 1:00 until 3:00pm.
Hospital hustle committee members Gary Levy, Linda MacKinnon, Jennifer Hutchins Conrad, and Karen McGee. Photo contributed by Linda MacKinnon
There will be no hustle for Queens General Hospital this year.
The annual hospital hustle event coordinated by members of the Queens General Hospital Auxiliary has been put off until 2023.
Auxiliary president Linda MacKinnon says several reason factored into their decision to call off the 2022 edition.
“COVID, we’re just not sure what’s going on with that or what will be in September. We also need a new chairperson. We don’t currently have one to do it,” said MacKinnon. “Really it needs a little more planning than to start in June or July so we felt it would be better to postpone it.”
The hospital hustle traditionally raises between $20,000 and $30,000 which is turned over to the auxiliary to buy equipment for the hospital.
Like many fundraisers, the hustle went online in 2021 bringing in over $20,000 to buy an EKG machine.
The hospital received that equipment earlier this year and it was immediately put into service.
MacKinnon says auxiliary members were glad to be able to hold the hustle online but don’t feel they could go that route again this year.
“Most of our ladies are, we’re older and we’re not as savvy with the online as our younger folks are.”
She also heard concerns from some of their older supporters they weren’t aware the hustle was even happening because they don’t participate on social media and aren’t comfortable moving money online.
MacKinnon says with COVID restrictions lifting the hospital auxiliary is aiming to reopen the gift shop at Queens General in September.
They are looking to attract new members to help raise money for the hospital.
When it comes to the hustle, people can invest as much or as little time as they’d like, but every bit helps.
“There’s a lot of different types of things. You could be involved one day, you could be involved maybe a week or so just before and after or you could be involved in the actually planning, five or six months ahead,” said MacKinnon.
Anyone wishing to join can contact the Queens General Hospital Auxiliary directly.
Two nurses show a new gynaecological cart donated by the Queens General Hospital Auxiliary. Photo contributed by Queens General Hospital Auxiliary
The President of the Queens General Hospital Auxiliary is worried without an influx of new members, they may not be able to offer as much support to the hospital.
Linda MacKinnon says coming out of the pandemic the auxiliary is looking to bring in people who want to expand on their work.
“New ideas, new thoughts, and just some fresh energy to help us keep our group going. We’ve been there for so long that we’d hate to see it fold up. Hopefully that won’t happen,” said MacKinnon. “But if we don’t get new members we’ll certainly be curtailed as to the things that we can do.”
MacKinnon says there are currently just shy of 20 members, and she would like to see another five or 10 people sign on.The group has already cancelled plans to host the Hospital Hustle this year after the chairperson stepped down.
The annual event usually raises over $20,000 which the auxiliary uses to buy medical equipment and furniture such as beds, bedside tables and waiting room chairs for Queens General Hospital.
MacKinnon says it didn’t make sense to host the Hustle when faced with dual issues of not having a dedicated chairperson along with lingering concerns about the pandemic.
“An in-person event that’s large, like it is, we have it at the curling club and it’s wall to wall people. So, we’re not sure that this year is the right time to do that,” said MacKinnon. “Certainly, we’re promoting good health and we don’t want to do anything that would endanger anyone’s health.”
McKinnon says along with teas and other smaller events, a major source of revenue for the auxiliary is the gift shop they operate inside the hospital.
Sales from the volunteer run shop bring in another $10,000 each year.
Those doors have remained closed during the pandemic, but MacKinnon is hopeful as foot traffic increases at the hospital they can reopen.
In the meantime, the auxiliary is exploring new ways to support Queens General Hospital and says any new faces with fresh ideas are welcome.
To volunteer with the Auxiliary, please contact Bea Delong at 902-354-4676
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.
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.”
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.
