N.S. health minister says Baddeck hospital ER will reopen eventually

About 200 people packed into the Alexander Graham Bell Museum in Baddeck, N.S., on Thursday evening to hear the government's plans for Victoria County Memorial Hospital.

Residents say they are worried the closure of the emergency department and opening of a temporary urgent treatment centre will become permanent.

But Nova Scotia Minister of Health and Wellness Michelle Thompson, who grew up in nearby Middle River, says that won't happen.

The government is working on staff recruitment to reopen an emergency department in Baddeck that will be staffed around the clock, she told the crowd.

"We know that the emergency room here is important. We understand why and so we are committed to getting back to that model," Thompson said later in an interview.

Victoria County Memorial Hospital's emergency department has been closed for much of the summer.

Appointment-only clinic coming

Health officials say the facility does not have enough doctors and nurses and the existing staff are overworked and no longer willing to take emergency cases.

The province says the new urgent treatment centre, which opens on Tuesday, is a temporary move until more staff can be found.

It will be an appointment-only clinic for non-life-threatening issues such as simple fractures, sprains, earaches, minor cuts and mild abdominal pain.

However, residents say they don't want to drive an hour to the closest ER in Sydney for more serious — or even life-threatening — medical issues.

Cathy Lamey, owner of the Cabot Trail Motel, said not having emergency health care available could affect tourists and the community's future.

"I think people will even change their minds as to whether they're going to come here to retire," she said. "Without health care, I mean, this is a life and death situation."

Some in the crowd wondered if the new clinic would lead to the loss of other equipment and services at the hospital.

But Nova Scotia Health's executive director of operations for the eastern zone, Brett MacDougall, said the province is already advertising for all new equipment in the hospital's lab.

"We are trying to make sure that the facility has all of the equipment that's necessary, so we're not de-investing … we're investing," he said.

Several people at the meeting, including geriatric psychiatrist Jeanne Ferguson who has patients in Baddeck and other hospitals, wanted to know how long the temporary clinic would operate and when the ER would reopen.

"What timeline are we looking at, because we're highly skeptical that this will happen within one to two years at the very least," she said.

MacDougall said he could not give a clear answer on that, because it depends on a number of factors, including recruitment of more doctors and nurses with emergency medicine training.

Ferguson said when emergency rooms in New Waterford, Glace Bay and North Sydney closed, patients were forced to go to the regional hospital in Sydney and the overflow started going to Baddeck.

The province recently announced the reopening of Glace Bay's emergency department for two days a week, but Ferguson said that might not stop Baddeck's clinic from being swamped again.

Ferguson and others asked Nova Scotia Health to consider opening Baddeck's ER a couple of days a week, but Dr. Don Brien said the staff in Baddeck simply could not take emergency cases anymore.

'They were extremely overworked'

He said the doctors and nurses told him it was unsafe to continue.

"They were actually concerned. They were extremely overworked," he said.

"There were very significant and severe complications, difficult cases coming in. They had difficulty getting them transferred to other hospitals. They were staying in their departments for long periods of time."