Storm week at Moncton Hospital reveals cracks in system, doctor says

Moncton Hospital's chief of staff says the cancellation of 25 scheduled surgeries last week because of the ice storm and flu has reveals cracks in New Brunswick's stressed health-care system.

Moncton Hospital cancelled the same number of surgeries last week as it normally cancels in a year, said Dr. Serge Melanson. 

• Ice storm hits Miramichi region, Acadian Peninsula hard, leaves thousands in dark 

"We had difficulty discharging patients ready to go home when they didn't have power in their home," Melanson said. "So we had more people sick coming in, less people able to go out, and we were already running well above 100 per cent occupancy.

"It's really important to understand under what conditions and stress our hospital and most hospital in this province function on most days."

Too many patients for full hospital

Last week, when more patients were being admitted than were being discharged at the already full hospital, the difficult decision was made to cancel scheduled surgeries, Melanson said.

"Our only means of  stemming that inflow of patients was to slow down the amount of people coming in for planned operations. It was the only tool we had available."

But Melanson told Information Morning Moncton the move demonstrates how stressed the health-care system is.

"I think we might be witnessing a true watershed moment, where a hospital such as ours and others in the province … were unable to actually accommodate or to meet that challenge and essentially failed to provide a very essential service which are scheduled surgeries for our citizens."

Not the place for vulnerable

Further pressure on the hospital comes from patients who fall under the category of alternative level of care, who no longer need to be in a hospital but because of their frailty or vulnerability there is no other place for them to go.

"In other words, a nursing care or special care home."

At the Moncton Hospital, these patients make up 22 per cent of the patients at any one time, Melanson said.

"So it's essentially trying to run a hospital with one hand tied behind our back," he said.

It can't be the hospital as a default, and that's what it's turned out to be.- Dr. Serge Melanson, the Moncton Hospital

And on top of the implications for occupancy, it's dangerous for the patients — "frail elderly people that are being housed at a facility that has the most dangerous micro-organisms in our community at this very moment," he said.

"Unless we come up with some serious solutions in the near future, this problem is only going to occur more frequently." 

The government, "obviously, has a huge role to play in this as well, and the solution, I think, is quite simple in some regards, It's the execution that's quite difficult," Melanson said.

'We need to take those 85 or so patients at the Moncton Hospital and we need to find them a more appropriate place to live.

"It can't be the hospital as a default, and that's what it's turned out to be."

The CBC sought comment from the Department of Health but did not receive a response.

Jean-René Noël, a spokesperson for the Vitalité Health Network, said there were no cancellations of scheduled surgeries at the Dr. Georges-L.-Dumont University Hospital in Moncton or at Chaleur Regional Hospital in Bathurst the week of the ice storm.