No anesthesia service at Prince County Hospital in Summerside from April 5-11
Trauma and delivery patients may have to be diverted to Queen Elizabeth Hospital
Health P.E.I. says patients at Prince County Hospital in Summerside won't have access to anesthesia services from April 5-11, which will mean some trauma cases will be diverted to Charlottetown and surgeries will be postponed.
In a news release, the agency also said the hospital's obstetrical team will be present to assess those expecting to give birth during the week in question. The hospital handles one to two births a day on average, officials later told CBC News.
"When possible, deliveries will be diverted to Queen Elizabeth Hospital for patient safety, due to the potential need for anesthesia," the release said.
Health P.E.I. CEO Dr. Michael Gardam said the Island is facing a "critical shortage of anesthesiologists," with only about 60 per cent of the available positions filled.
It's a Canada-wide problem, he said, which means fewer anesthesiologists are available to come to P.E.I. to backfill for specialists who go on leave.
"One of the things we used to rely on was bringing in locums, especially locums from the big academic hospitals in Toronto," he said.
"They used to come here regularly. And they're so short-staffed… now that they can't send people anymore."
Prince County Hospital hasn't had a full-time anesthesiologist for about a year and a half, Gardam said, and those locums have filled the gap — until now.
"If you send an anesthesiologist to Prince County Hospital to keep it open, you're impacting more Islanders because you're now shutting down things at a larger hospital that has more procedures going on," he said.
We're literally robbing each other to try to keep the system running.— Dr. Michael Gardam
"So we're literally robbing each other to try to keep the system running."
Gardam said this isn't the first time the agency has had to deal with this problem.
"This has happened to us before," he said. "It's just always very unfortunate when we have to do this."
Back in August, Prince County Hospital said it couldn't guarantee epidural pain relief would be available in the delivery room for two weeks.
And in May 2016, then-health minister Robert Henderson said a shortage of anesthesiologists at the Summerside hospital could lead to surgery delays leading into the summer months.
As for the current situation at Prince County Hospital, Gardam said surgeries that had been scheduled to happen from April 5-11 will have to be postponed, and trauma patients in need of services that require anesthesia will be diverted directly to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Charlottetown.
Health P.E.I.'s news release said transportation and supports will be arranged when needed, but patients can also go directly to the QEH themselves.
Recent retirements cited
Gardam said many anesthesiologists retired recently and "it's not a program that has a huge number of trainees."
He puts a lot of the blame for the number of retirements on the COVID-19 pandemic.
"[Anesthesiologists] were the ones intubating people. Respiratory therapists are another group that were involved in that, people working in the ICU, people working in the emergency department," he said.
"We have lost — and [when] I say we, I mean the Canadian system has lost — people in droves because of the pandemic."
With files from Shane Fowler