Latest news with #emergencyCare
Globe and Mail
07-07-2025
- Health
- Globe and Mail
Canada's emergency room crisis is worse than we thought
Ever since the pandemic, emergency-room closures have become more common in Canada, especially in rural communities. This can leave people in dangerous situations that can require them to drive an hour or more to access emergency medical care. When time is of the essence, emergency-room closures can be deadly. Because there's no centralized data on how common closures are across Canada, it's challenging to parse out how bad the problem is. As part of The Globe's Secret Canada series, health reporter Kelly Grant, investigative reporter Tu Thanh Ha and data editor Yang Sun analyzed data on emergency room closures across Canada. Kelly and Ha are on the show to talk about how widespread these closures really are, what it means for people living in those communities and what kinds of solutions are possible. Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at thedecibel@
Globe and Mail
30-06-2025
- Health
- Globe and Mail
Nova Scotia emergency rooms report ‘enormous' improvement in sepsis detection
Nova Scotia's health system is improving its methods for early detection of sepsis, a life-threatening condition that occurs when the immune system reacts to infection by attacking the body's organs. Introduced in January, 2024, the new program offers front-line caregivers in emergency rooms new tools and training to help them determine when patients might be at risk. The reform comes after several high-profile deaths over the past five years, with families of deceased patients arguing their loved ones could have been saved had their infections been caught earlier. Data released by Nova Scotia Health says prior to January, 2024, about 55 per cent of patients at six health facilities who met criteria for sepsis were receiving antibiotic treatment within three hours after triage, for an average wait of 233 minutes. Now, it's about 82 per cent of patients receiving the vital treatment within three hours, with the average wait down to 124 minutes. Canadian team's sepsis-testing device shows promise in fight against one of the world's most common killers Dr. Vanessa Sweet, a medical lead in the program, said in a recent interview that quick response to sepsis is critical to saving lives. The reform is an 'enormous improvement,' she said. The program includes what she refers to as 'a package of approaches,' which include offering front-line workers a box of supplies needed for starting sepsis care. A new set of directives also allows nurses to administer a first dose of antibiotics without a prescriber's signature, in select cases where symptoms are clear. The new approaches are critical in cases where time is often of the essence, said Sweet. The anesthesiologist said by having nurses take the first step, 'we're not behind the eight ball' when the patient sees a doctor. In a recent email to The Canadian Press, Kim DeWolfe says she hopes her mother's case factored into the province's decision to improve its sepsis detection and care. In 2022, Diane Breen died from sepsis after spending eight hours waiting at the Aberdeen Hospital in New Glasgow, N.S., before being briefly seen by a doctor about a urinary tract infection. Breen – a runner without health conditions – had told medical staff about a week of chills and cold sweats, but she was nonetheless discharged to her home with an antibiotic prescription, according to family. Within hours, she was dead. 'For me, this initiative is an acknowledgment that there were things that could have been done differently which may have resulted in a different outcome for my mother,' DeWolfe said. 'From triage to discharge no one adequately screened my mother for sepsis.' 'I support these changes. Proper screening, along with these kits, will save lives.' Sweet, who has been practising in Nova Scotia since 2017, said that before the program was introduced, a review showed 'our sepsis care wasn't as good as it should be.' A key element of the new program are staff 'sepsis champions' in ERs, where a health worker on each shift is available for expert advice in recognizing the condition. From babysitting to six-figure signing bonuses, recruiters are pulling out all the stops to lure family doctors to their communities Kayla Dort, an emergency care nurse and program champion at the Cobequid Community Health Centre, said in an interview Friday that spotting the condition isn't easy. 'We see it all the time. It's a very prominent and difficult illness to capture sometimes,' she said. Nurses now have access to a small card that explains the criteria to investigate potential sepsis, including factors such as elevated temperature, abnormal heart rate and decreased blood pressure. Nurses are also asked to consider risk factors such as whether patients are suffering from other illnesses. Dort has pioneered a small slogan that is posted around ERs titled, 'Time is organ,' with an hourglass depicting the passage of time – a reference to how the condition can damage organs and tissue if untreated. The program will be expanded to one of the city's largest hospitals, the Halifax Infirmary, this fall, she said. Meanwhile, a team of Canadian researchers has created a device that can quickly test a patient's blood and predict whether they are going to develop sepsis. The device – called Powerblade – produced the results in less than three hours. Researchers, including with the National Research Council Canada, were hoping to begin a clinical trial with Powerblade this year. Dr. Claudia dos Santos at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto, who is the senior author of a research paper about Powerblade published in May in the journal Nature Communications, says sepsis kills thousands of people in Canada and close to 50 million people worldwide every year.
Yahoo
08-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Colombian presidential candidate shot in Bogota
Colombian presidential candidate Miguel Uribe has been shot at an event in Bogota, according to Colombian national police. The mayor of Bogota, Carlos Galán, said Uribe was receiving emergency care after being attacked in the Fontibon district on Saturday and that the 'entire hospital network' of the Colombian capital was on alert in case he needed to be transferred. The mayor added that the suspected attacker had been arrested. Colombian President Gustavo Petro expressed his solidarity with the senator's family in a tweet on X, saying, 'I don't know how to ease your pain. It is the pain of a mother lost, and of a wounded homeland.' Colombia's government has issued a statement condemning the attack on Uribe. This is a developing story and will be updated.
ABC News
03-06-2025
- Business
- ABC News
St John Ambulance WA records worst ambulance ramping figures for May
The Australian Medical Association has warned record levels of ambulance ramping could lead to increased deaths among patients waiting for emergency care, as Western Australia faces its worst flu season in at least three years. St John Ambulance data shows last month was the worst May on record for ambulance ramping, with patients spending 5,333 hours parked outside WA hospitals. Ramping occurs any time an ambulance spends more than 30 minutes waiting outside a hospital for their patient to be received. The previous record for May was 5,258 hours in 2022, at the tail-end of the COVID pandemic. During May last year, ambulances spent 4,837 hours ramped outside of hospitals. It comes as WA faces its worst flu season since at least 2022, which could put extra pressure on hospitals, with 6,983 influenza cases already reported to WA Health so far this year. Australian Medical Association WA president Michael Page said that was a concern for doctors. "We know that the longer a patient is waiting for emergency department care, the higher the chance of death," he said. "There's a lot of good international evidence about that and there's no reason to think things would be any different here." Dr Page attributed the issues to long-term pressures in the health system, most acutely a shortage of hospital beds and doctors and nurses. The main short-term solution, he said, was increasing WA's vaccination rates. Data from the Australian Immunisation Register shows Western Australia has the lowest flu vaccination rate of all states with only 19 per cent of sandgropers vaccinated this year. "That is a role for our new Preventative Health Minister, whose portfolio includes vaccination," Dr Page said. "So we would like to see strong action from government on researching the reasons that people are declining to be vaccinated and addressing those problems head on." The WA government has promised hundreds of millions of dollars to address ramping pressures, including expanding its Virtual Emergency Department program which aims to divert patients from EDs. Asked about the current level of ramping, Premier Roger Cook also pointed to election commitments to upgrade emergency departments at Royal Perth and Midland hospitals. "We continue to make sure that we grow hospital beds, and the staff that stand by them, so that's an important part of it," he said. "Ultimately we need better flow of patients, so that's one of the reasons we have our $100 million aged care support package. "And of course we want to make sure that we have a healthy population, which means that we need to continue to encourage the federal government to grow urgent care clinics and the opportunities to get primary care." Dr Page said while those measures would help, there was no avoiding the need to build more beds. "So building more ED beds might, in the short term, improve the EDs ability to see patients coming in through the front door, sure, but it doesn't solve the problem that patients are still waiting in our EDs for beds on the wards." Shadow Health Minister Libby Mettam said the issues showed the government had the wrong priorities and urged it to outline what its "surge plan" was to deal with increased demand. "The Cook Labor government need to outline that plan and outline how they will better support and incentivise our health workers to ensure we have the staff that we need, that there are reforms in place to better support our emergency departments," she said. "They need to make health a priority, they need to ensure that there is a surge plan ahead of winter and ensure that our emergency departments and our health services across the community have the support that they require to ensure lives will not be lost. Dr Page said he was unsure what a surge plan would look like. "Hospitals are routinely over 100 per cent capacity because the wards are full and there are patients waiting in corridors for proper ward beds," he said. "So where is surge capacity going to come from when you're running at over one hundred per cent capacity already?"
