P.E.I. hospitals have 'no wiggle room' to care for extra patients during tourist season: ER physician

An emergency room physician working at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital says the province'shealth-care system may not be ready to handle the influx of people arriving to the P.E.I.during this year's touristseason.

Dr. Trevor Jain said during an interview with CBC News: Compass on Monday that hospitals have almost no capacity to handle more patients, especially amid a shortage of staff and with COVID-19 restrictions easing.

"People can play with the numbers, but our hospitals regularly are above 85 per cent capacity. So we have no wiggle room," Jain said.

"We're entering this touristseasonand my colleagues, especially at Prince County Hospital, they're quite concerned with regards to an influx of tourists this summer. I mean, the norm for them right now is to be short-staffed than fully-staffed."

Jain said wait times in hospitals are the worst the Island has seen in 15 years, with more than one in 10 patients waiting to get into the emergency department leaving without being seen.

"[The rate of] patients that register in our emergency departments, but then leave because the waits are so long, are up to 14 per cent. And we don't like that as a system," he said.

"As emergency physicians and nurses and support staff or clerks, the whole team, we don't like it. These are our friends, family and relatives and neighbours that we're trying to look after."

Jain said the lack of ambulances available on P.E.Iis also having a snowball effect across emergency departments on the Island.

"When we need to transfer a patient out, if there's not enough ambulances, we're stabilizing the patient That impacts us in the emergency department," he said.

"It makes it makes it difficult when we don't have these phenomenal health-care providers on the road."

The lack of available ambulances has been a hot topic of discussion in recent weeks at the provincial legislature, with some paramedics saying the system is close to a breaking point.