Cambridge Memorial Hospital ‘is essentially full’

The staffing shortage plaguing Ontario hospitals has spread to Cambridge, with no obvious remedy in sight.

In a Tuesday morning Tweet, Cambridge Memorial Hospital warned that “emergency wait times are very high today due to patient volumes, limited inpatient beds and on-going staff shortages.”

“If you are able, find alternate health care options,” the post continued. “If you cannot, rest assured patients will be seen in priority order.”

The warning was triggered by some unprecedented data. According to Stephan Beckhoff, the hospital’s communications coordinator, CMH held 22 admitted patients in the emergency room Tuesday morning—the highest-ever amount recorded by the hospital.

“The reason they are being held in the emergency is that the hospital is at capacity,” Beckhoff told CambridgeToday. “Ninety-six per cent of our medicine beds are occupied and with the on-going staffing shortage, is essentially full.”

The hospital further confirmed it had 47 staff off work due to illness on Tuesday; 20 of those absences were due to COVID-19, the rest because of other illnesses.

The shortage of workers forced the emergency department to be reduced by half, slowing down the hospital's ability to treat patients.

“Nursing staff and physicians have to attend to the admitted patients that are very sick, taking away from their ability to care for those waiting,” Beckhoff said.

As if the situation isn’t dire enough, the hospital’s online wait-time clock is not currently accurate “due to technical issues.” Beckhoff said some patients waited upwards of 13 hours Tuesday to receive treatment, depending on the severity of their case.

People experiencing a heart attack, for example, will be seen right away, whereas someone with a sore throat will wait much longer.

The staffing shortage is not new to the hospital. Beckhoff says it is something that leadership has been trying to fix since before the pandemic.

At present, the hospital has 174 job vacancies.

Tuesday’s warning from CMH came on the same day that provincial politicians returned to Queen’s Park for a new legislative session. The Ford government’s throne speech acknowledged that more can be done to boost staffing levels in Ontario hospitals, but offered no new solutions on how to ease pressure on the healthcare system.

“There's no question it, like health systems across Canada, continues to experience significant pressures, including an exhausted workforce and increasingly stressed emergency departments,” said Lt.-Gov. Elizabeth Dowdeswell, who delivered the throne speech. 

“More can still be done,” she continued. “Your government is actively engaging with health-system partners to identify urgent, actionable solutions and will implement whatever measures are needed to help ease immediate pressures, while also ensuring the province is ready to stay open during any winter surge.”

A spokesperson with Cambridge Memorial Hospital confirmed two surgeries were cancelled Tuesday and six were cancelled Wednesday because of the situation. There were no further cancellations reported on Thursday and it's not anticipated there will be any deferred surgeries on Friday.

— With files from CityNews