Nurses speak out against unsafe patient care in Fraser Health ER's

The BCNU is gravely concerned about the ongoing chaos in some Fraser Health emergency rooms. Recently, many hospitals reached their breaking point. ER's have been overflowing, wait times excessive and patient care has suffered.

Nurse-patient ratios have skyrocketed in some ER's, because of unfilled staffing vacancies. In Surrey's new ER last week, patients were lined up in the hall. One nurse was taking care of 11 patients. Generally the ratio should be one nurse to 4 stable patients.

In Abbotsford a pediatric psych patient was in the ER for 4 days waiting for a ward bed. At Eagle Ridge, a dying man was read his last rights in the hallway, with 12 strangers watching. On Tuesday, a patient with a highly contagious MRSA superbug was wandering around the ER hallway and into the Tim Horton's Coffee Shop at the Royal Columbian Hospital.

"This is not safe or appropriate patient care," says McPherson. "And it's not due to a sudden spike in emergency visits. These hospitals have been dealing with chaos for weeks and months - and in Surrey, since the day the new ER opened."

Only when a few patient horror stories became public did the Fraser Health Authority respond to the crisis. Finally - just in the last few days - temporary measures have been put in place to ease the congestion.

The BCNU is demanding long term, permanent solutions to chronic overcapacity problems.

"Band-Aid fixes are not the way to solve chronic overcapacity problems," says BCNU President Debra McPherson. "Fraser Health officials need to get out of their boardrooms and see the chaos in the ER's. There aren't enough funded beds, staffing levels are grossly inadequate and it's having a significant impact on safe patient care."