Doctor calls temporary closure of Saskatoon ER 'a red flag'

Emergency room staff at a Saskatoon hospital struggled to serve patients due to a shortage of doctors.

On Tuesday evening, a sign at the entrance to City Hospital alerted patients they may be asked to go to another hospital due to a "temporary disruption."

According to a Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) statement, there was an "unexpected temporary shortage of emergency department physicians due to illness."

"During this limited service reduction, patients continued to be triaged by emergency department staff and an emergency department physician remained on site to assess, treat and support patients," the SHA statement said.

Dr. Brittany Ellis has been working as an emergency room physician in Saskatoon for five years and says she's never heard of an emergency room in Saskatoon having to partially close for a few hours.

"This is a red flag," she said. "Our system has been doing its best to cope. Our departments, my colleagues, we've all been doing our best to cope for months (and) years. And these are signs that it's not coping anymore."

City Hospital's emergency room is open from 9 a.m. until 8:30 p.m. every day. The Saskatchewan Health Authority says the disruption began at 5 p.m. Ellis couldn't confirm if any patients were turned away because of the staff shortage.

Ellis says she's concerned uncommon practices from five years ago are now being normalized.

She says emergency rooms are often full of patients who have been admitted but can't get to the appropriate ward because there is no space for them, so instead they're treated in the hallways.

For staff, overcrowding means many are working overtime shifts and enduring moral injury.

"When I'm not able to provide the care I would like to be providing that weighs on me. That's hard to go home with and that leads to a lot of increased stress and really increased burnout – and that's something you'll hear a lot of physicians talk about these days," she said.

Official opposition health critic Vicki Mowat was concerned about the apparent lack of transparency from the province in notifying residents about any disruptions at an emergency room, rather than waiting for staff like Ellis to sound the alarm.

"The government has a responsibility to report these closures. Otherwise, if you're in an emergency situation, you're putting yourself in more danger potentially going out of the way in the wrong direction to go to a facility that cannot provide care," she said.

"I think it's an attempt to paint a rosier picture than what we have in front of us right now."

As repeated calls for systematic change have resulted in little meaningful progress for now, Ellis is hoping Saskatoon's hospitals can avoid further disruptions moving forward.

"Emergency departments typically represent the last line and the first line for a whole range of users. And when the last line starts to fail, we're in big trouble," she said.

Regular services at City Hospital’s emergency department resumed Wednesday morning, according to the SHA.