Emergency department hours have been reduced at Ste. Anne Hospital.

Dr. Denis Fortier is Chief Medical Officer for Southern Health. He says that hospital, which runs a 24-hour emergency department, will now only be open from 8 am to 8 pm.

Dr. Fortier explains this reduction is due to a lack of physicians. He notes they are losing a number of physicians either to departures or to a temporary leave of absence. Dr. Fortier says they decided to work around these challenges in April, but knew at some point they were going to have to reduce hours. He notes in order to avoid that, they would have needed to find new physicians to fill those vacancies and when that did not happen, they announced the change.

This is not the first time the emergency department at Ste. Anne Hospital has reduced its hours. Dr. Fortier says similar to when this happened a number of years ago, they took a close look to see where they got their biggest bang from limited hours. He notes the 12-hour period from 8 am to 8 pm is their busiest stretch.

"So we thought if we could maintain that, that we would still be able to offer a pretty good service to the people from that area," notes Dr. Fortier.

According to Dr. Fortier, it is difficult to say just how many physicians are needed to run that emergency department. He notes really they need six full-time physicians for that emergency department to run 24 hours a day. But he notes that is a fluid number and it is much more complicated than that. For example, if you have six full-time physicians, you could say that each one works a night shift every six days. However, in a hospital like Ste. Anne, these physicians are also either full-time or part-time physicians in the clinic and are responsible for admitting their patients to the hospital and taking care of those sick patients. On top of that, some of them are up in the middle of the night delivering babies.

As for how long the emergency department will operate with reduced hours, Dr. Fortier says the last time this happened, they returned to normal hours within a year. He is hopeful that in the coming months this can be resolved. Dr. Fortier says a leave of absence is temporary, however, he notes in this case, it is still quite a number of months of leave of absence before there is a return.

"It will take some time to find enough recruits and waiting for these people to come back from their leaves of absence to really get this going again," he explains.

In the meantime, Dr. Fortier says residents of the area have a few different options when requiring medical care. If 911 is needed, Dr. Fortier says they should dial 911 and the emergency response service will take them to the most appropriate and closest facility. For someone not requiring emergency services, Dr. Fortier says they should try to contact their primary care provider. If it is emergency services needed after hours, Dr. Fortier says residents should seek help from a walk-in clinic or other emergency department or urgent care department in the area.

Meanwhile, Dr. Fortier says it certainly happens on occasion that hours are reduced at emergency departments in the province and even in Southern Health. He notes the pandemic the last two years added a significant challenge to human resources. Dr. Fortier says for their three regional hospitals, including Bethesda in Steinbach, the regional health authority will do everything in its power to keep them open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. He notes the Ste. Anne Hospital happens to be their busiest community hospital, and is one of many that is currently functioning with a 12 hour emergency department.