Overcrowding eases at Halifax ER

The emergency room in Nova Scotia's largesthospitalisn't as busy as it has been in the last few days, a spokesman says.

Peter Graham, spokesman for the Capital District Health Authority, said there were only seven patients admitted who didn't have beds Wednesday morning, compared to 16 a day earlier.

"The situation seems much improved over yesterday morning," Graham told CBC News Wednesday.

Early Tuesday, the corridors of the emergency department at the QEII Health Sciences Centre in Halifax were filled with patients in gurneys, while several patients waited in ambulances parked outside.

Theshortage of beds and doctors prompted an emergency physician to trigger the first-ever "code orange" for an internal problem.

The alert is normally used to signal an event that involves mass casualties, such as a major industrial or vehicle accident. It'sintended to get staff focused on one task and find beds within the hospital. It was used for the SwissAir disaster in 1998 and the MK Airlines crash in 2004.

Dr. John Ross, director of the emergency department, said the goal was to ensure the situation never happened again.

"When you have an internal disaster that is actually predictable and preventable, then I think it's time to have a look at what you are up to and acknowledge that there are things we can do differently," he said.

Ross said there are a number of issues to address, including ongoing efforts to find long-term care beds for elderly patients, and transferring people who have been given advanced treatment in Halifax back to local hospitals.

The new minister of health, Karen Casey, said these are some of the concerns she wants to discuss with managers at the health authority.

"I need to know what practices and procedures are there and how they might be improved so that this kind of backup doesn't occur," Casey said.

An expansion of the emergency room is supposed to be finished in June. But Casey said that's only part of the solution and there are other decisions to make about how to manage the flow of patients.

Graham said there was no one reason why the emergency room has been flooded with patients in the last few days.

He said doctors have been seeing slip-and-fall injuries related to the icy conditions, but also patients with a variety of illnesses and ailments.