Overcapacity alert ended at Cape Breton Regional Hospital

An overcapacity alert has ended at the Cape Breton Regional Hospital in Sydney, N.S, after staff were able to free up beds to admit a backlog of patients in the emergency room.

The alert was issued Thursday. It was the first time the hospital issued such an alert, according to Nova Scotia Health Authority spokesperson Greg Boone.

The notice replaces the health authority's former "code census" alert. 

The alert was sent to staff to let them know that the emergency department was "severely over capacity." There were 25 patients who had been admitted waiting for beds and another 15 "detained" patients waiting for test results or consultations with specialists.

The alert asked staff to do everything possible to free up inpatient medical and surgical beds to make room for those being admitted.

By Friday morning, the situation in the emergency room had eased with seven patients waiting to be admitted and another seven detained.

That was enough to lift the capacity alert, said Boone.

In the past few weeks, he said it's been not uncommon to see up to two dozen patients admitted in the emergency department and as many as another 15 waiting for results or consultations.

Boone said the regional hospital's staff are moving patients to hospitals in their home communities and assessing opportunities to discharge other patients.

"It's no surprise that our regional emergency department has been extremely busy for weeks and weeks now," said Boone.

He said the temporary closures of other community ERs is partly to blame.

"We have, on any given day, 20 or more vacant beds in our in community hospitals," he said, citing Glace Bay where 23 inpatient beds are vacant. 

Those beds have been closed because some family doctors in the community are no longer admitting or treating in-hospital patients while they are in pay negotiations, said Boone.

Nurses from the Glace Bay hospital have been moved to the regional hospital inpatient units to help cover the increased volume.