Guelph ER brought to standstill by mental health bed shortage

Guelph General Hospital's emergency room beds and services have been tied up by people in mental crisis because they have nowhere else to go, a report by the Waterloo-Wellington Local Health Integration Network shows.

"Our emergency room would come to a standstill," EileenBain, vice president of patient services told CBC News, "because we had 10 or 11 patients who required inpatient admission and we had no place to put them."

• Wait for mental health services too long in Waterloo, Wellington

"One of the patients said to me, 'If a patient came in with a heart attack, you wouldn't wait for 48 or 50 hours to treat my heart attack, but I'm coming here with a psychiatric crisis or emergency and it's okay to wait for 48 or 50 hours to see a psychiatrist?'"

Unlike other hospitals in Waterloo Region and Wellington County,GuelphGeneral does not have any beds in the hospital that are dedicated to caring for people with mental health emergencies.

...it's okay to wait for 48 or 50 hours to see a psychiatrist?- Patient, Guelph General Hospital

95 per cent of patients inmental distresswho gotadmitted toGuelphGeneral Hospital'semergency room on a Saturday were stillthereMonday, tying up emergency room resources and staff while the patientwaited to be transferred toHomewoodHealth Centre.

Long wait times

The hospital has a partnership withHomewood, which is one of the largest mental health and addiction facilities in Canada.

Homewood is called to do a psychiatric assessment when someone arrives at the hospital's emergency room in a mental crisis, but the health centre is not always able to respond promptly to an assessment request.

"So, we would hold those patients in our emergency room and they wouldn't get the care they need," Bain said.

She said the situation came to a head in 2014 and was taking its toll on everyone, including patients and front line staff.

From 2011 to 2014, the number of people showing up with psychiatric emergencies increase by about 50 per cent.

Mental health review

Faced with an ever-increasing number of psychiatric emergencies, Guelph General asked the Waterloo-Wellington LHIN to review the mental health services that were available in the region.

"We knew that we had to do something very, very different," she said. "We needed new ways of caring for these patients."

The LHIN released its final report this week, which pointed out areas of the health care system that could be improved to better support patients with mental health or addictions concerns.

Bain said the hospital is already making some of those improvements, such as building a new safe room for patients in mental crisis and working more closely with Homewood psychiatrists.