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Red Deer hospital diverted surgeries to Edmonton, Calgary on weekend

Updated: Surgical diversions stopped by 8 a.m. on Monday, said AHS
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Some surgical patients were transferred to Edmonton and Calgary from Red Deer over the weekend “in an effort to reduce patient wait times and ensure access to urgent surgical care for those requiring it,” AHS said on Twitter Monday morning. (File photo by Advocate staff)

Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre stopped temporarily diverting surgical patients to Edmonton and Calgary on Monday morning, said Alberta Health Services.

AHS said on Sunday that nine patients needing surgery had been transferred from Red Deer to Edmonton and Calgary over the weekend.

However, on Monday morning AHS Central Zone tweeted, “As of 8 a.m. this morning Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre is no longer transferring surgical patients to other facilities.”

Some patients were transferred on the weekend “in an effort to reduce patient wait times and ensure access to urgent surgical care for those requiring it,” AHS tweeted.

Doctors were informed on Sunday of the surgical diversions, said surgeon Dr. Bryce Henderson, who has worked at the Red Deer hospital since 2006.

“My understanding is the hospital is so over-capacity that they can no longer accommodate even emergencies,” said Henderson on the weekend.

“There’s really no room to bring people into the OR because you can’t get them into the (emergency room) and even if you’ve gotten them into the (emergency room) there are no beds to put them in before or after surgery. The whole system is gridlocked.”

It’s a “very concerning” situation, Henderson noted on Sunday.

“We’re now overcapacity for emergency surgeries even though we aren’t doing elective surgery,” Henderson explained.

“That means that basically our whole hospital is already over-capacity with emergency surgeries. … It really is indicative of the state of which we are over-capacity or overwhelmed.”

AHS said on Sunday that “all patients were considered as non-emergencies, and the decision to transfer them was made to reduce patient wait times.

“The site is experiencing higher than normal number of patients needing surgery. There are also some ongoing OR position vacancies that have impacted the number of procedures able to be performed.”

READ MORE: Red Deer still playing surgery catch up

Besides diverting some patients to Edmonton and Calgary, AHS said it is also working to perform additional surgeries at other Central zone sites, such as Olds Hospital and Care Centre.

“All emergency surgeries are being handled at RDRHC as normal,” AHS said, adding the situation is being closely monitored and patients are being diverted as necessary.

“AHS continues to actively recruit additional OR staffing to support increased surgical volumes at RDRHC, as well as providing additional in-house training for staff through an OR training program developed at the site.”

A backlog of surgeries is not a new problem, Henderson said.

“I was on call about two weeks ago and I was on night for four days in a row. I did about 18 surgeries in four days and it was still extremely backed up, with two pages worth on our booking list for emergency surgeries when I was done. That I think is indicative for the need for emergency surgical services.”

A situation like this shows a need for a second hospital in Red Deer, Henderson added.

“Our hospital, with its size, can only handle the emergency surgeries – and this week we saw that it can’t. I don’t know if we necessarily need a new hospital. This to me clarifies that we need another hospital. Maybe a separate standing hospital or an adjacent hospital for elective surgery and keep the one we have running for emergency procedures,” he said.



sean.mcintosh@reddeeradvocate.com

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Sean McIntosh

About the Author: Sean McIntosh

Sean joined the Red Deer Advocate team in the summer of 2017. Originally from Ontario, he worked in a small town of 2,000 in Saskatchewan for seven months before coming to Central Alberta.
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