Dozens of new patients needing surgery are expected to be diverted in coming days from Red Deer to hospitals in Edmonton and Calgary, says a Red Deer surgeon.
Orthopedic surgeon Dr. Keith Wolstenholme said doctors were alerted on Tuesday morning that no more non-emergency surgeries from surrounding areas would be accepted in Red Deer, a situation expected to last until Saturday.
Emergency surgeries and the most urgent scheduled surgeries are still going ahead. But if someone in Innisfail or Lacombe needed an appendectomy performed or a broken leg mended, they would be sent to Edmonton or Calgary instead of Red Deer, said Wolstenholme.
“When you think, on average, we are probably booking 10 new surgical cases per day, that’s a lot of potential cases that are going to have to be shipped and taken care of elsewhere,” said Wolstenholme.
Doctors are frustrated and exasperated by the situation, he said. “Same old problem. Too many patients and not enough resources.”
Wolstenholme said it is concerning that the hospital reached this point without any significant incident, such as a bus crash with multiple victims or other incidents that put unusual stress on the system.
“Was there any one big dramatic thing — no. Unfortunately, it doesn’t even take anything dramatic to put us into surgical diversion. It just takes our regular volume building up.
“That’s the sad part of it. If this was something like a major catastrophe you could understand how a city or hospital of our size couldn’t handle it. But just to have a bit of slippery weather, essentially, and we’re in surgical diversion … it shouldn’t work that way.”
Diverting patients also adds to ambulance shortage issues because patients from central Alberta have to be transported to hospitals much further away, tying up ambulances for longer periods of time.
Dr. Bryce Henderson, at the hospital, said his patients are already feeling the impact of the diversions. An elderly woman who was waiting for a hip revision surgery had it cancelled at the last moment because there were no beds.
“People are suffering. If you run a hospital at 110 per cent capacity for 15 years eventually it’s going to pile up and break,” said the orthopedic surgeon.
“If hospitals are going to be continually overrun this is what happens.”
Diverting patients to Edmonton and Calgary does nothing to address the problems.
“The last time this happened, they didn’t do the surgeries there. They just waited until we were off diversion and they sent them back.”
Henderson said too often politics interferes with health care decisions.
“At the end of the day, tough decision need to be made and they aren’t being made. They weren’t with the previous government and they aren’t with this government.
“We’re not making any forward progress here anymore. It’s kind of sad.”
Alberta Health Services was not immediately available for comment on Tuesday.