Calgary emergency doctors to assess waiting room patients

Patients in crowded emergency waiting rooms in Calgary will soon be examined by a doctor in a nearby curtained area.

The practice has started at the Foothills hospital and will soon begin in the Rockyview and Peter Lougheed hospitals.

"We know in Calgary there's been problems, people with miscarriages, people with appendicitis who've been forced to wait long times in waiting rooms," said Dr. Grant Innes, the head of emergency medicine for the Calgary Health Region.

"If we could get a physician out there to see those people much faster,then we can detect those conditions and treat them more aggressively."

When hospital beds are full, emergency stretchers fill up and sick people are left in the waiting room. One advantage of the new system is it allows doctors to order tests right away, said Innes.

St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver is using the system.Two-thirds of patients assessed by doctors in that hospitalare sent home right away, he said.

"That does save a lot of stretchers for patients who really need them and the patient waiting times in St. Paul's for an average, moderately sick patient are about 30 minutes, which is by far the best in the country."

Average waiting time reached13 hours

David Spalding's wife had to wait five hours at the Foothills hospital Wednesday, even though she was rushed to the emergency room by ambulance.

"There's lots of people so I understand why it was so long," he said. "There was people in the hallway, as well about four or five people came in by ambulance at the same time my wife did."

Spalding said he supports any attempts to cut wait times in emergency rooms.

"There were a lot of people in a fair amount of distress and I think a doctor seeing them right away would probably speed things up a lot."

A report released a year ago concluded the Calgary Health Region needed to do a better job co-ordinating emergency services after a number of patients complained and average wait times jumped to 13 hours.

One of the complaints came from Rick and Rose Lundy. Rose Lundy miscarried in the waiting room of the Peter Lougheed Hospital while three months pregnant. Nurses told them there was nowhere private to go.