Sudbury doc says ER waits getting worse

Staff from Health Sciences North and the Northeast Local Health Integration Network will meet next week totalk aboutwait times in the Sudbury emergency room.

Average wait times now exceed 19 hours and are consideredthefourth worst in the province. Dr. Peter Zalan, president of the medical staff at Health Sciences North, said the problem is getting worse because there are more frail elderly patients taking up beds in the emergency room instead ofin long-term care homes.

"We have massive overcrowding and it becomes very difficult to provide first-class care for those patients," Zalan said.

He said the waits aren't just causing frustration.

"Ten per cent of patients actually leave because they're fed up," he said. "And sometimes, they shouldn't have left."

Zalan said, while other countries saw this coming decades ago, Canada didn't put strategies in place to care forits aging population.

"In Denmark, they started planning for folks getting older in 1986 and they developed a wonderful system of caring for people in the community," he said. "We kind of started three years ago."

The provincial government says the long-term solution would see seniors living at home or in long-term care residences.

But Zalan said a short-term solution is neededimmediatelyuntil those options are available.