Island hospitals can handle summer tourism surge, says Health P.E.I.

Health P.E.I. says hospitals will be able to handle the influx of people arriving on P.E.I. during this year's tourist season, despite concerns raised this week about capacity.

The agency acknowledges the last few months have been challenging for Island hospitals, with staffing shortages and other issues, but officials say that hasn't caused any capacity concerns or led to many cancelled surgeries.

Hospitals actually get less busy in the summer, even with the surge in tourists, says Dylana Arsenault, executive director of Health P.E.I. hospital services and patient flow.

"When we look at that, we tend to see our occupancy rates drop. We don't have patients coming in to hospital for as many things as they might in the winter. And there does seem to be some wiggle room," she said.

Looking at average occupancy rates at the two biggest hospitals, the rate has been 83 per cent at Prince County Hospital over the past three months, and 75 per cent at Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

"Even during the peak of COVID when we had staff who were ill, patients coming in, we were able to maintain services across the province," Arsenault said.

Emergency departments, however, do get busier in summer.

"The kinds of things we see coming into our [emergency department] are people that were out for a hike and they twist an ankle, or their child has developed an ear infection. They're not things that they're coming in on mass for hospital admissions for," she said.

That ER capacity is a worry for Dr. Trevor Jain, who spoke to CBC News: Compass on Monday and said emergency departments are regularly short on doctors and nurses. 

Barbara Brookins, head of the province's nurses union, is worried too. Between the large number of vacancies and absences due to COVID, the last few months have been tough, she said. 

"We're hearing a lot more instances where staff are being called in on their days off. Every day, they're off, they're being called back in. There's times they're at the end of their shift and there's no replacement coming in to relieve them," she said.

"They're working above and beyond what their guarantees are and what they actually want to be working."

It's tough to predict what the COVID situation will be like on P.E.I. this summer and what it will mean for staffing and demands on the health-care system, but Health P.E.I. officials maintain hospitals will be prepared for whatever comes their way.