The emergency room (ER) at St. Joseph’s Hospital returned to its regular operating schedule on Monday.
The hospital announced on Friday morning that it would have 24-hour per day emergency services. There will no longer be non-emergent walk-in services at the hospital.
“We’ve been having a physician at the hospital, dedicated to the emergency department from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily on weekdays, and we added an extra nurse to help in the ER so we can move more people in the ER,” said Cheryl Harrison, the director of patient services at the hospital.
Those walk-in services were instituted at the emergency room back in January, due to the physician shortage in the community that left many people without a doctor.
Services in the emergency room ranged from the emergencies to people getting a prescription.
With the arrival of Dr. Boye Adeboye in mid-May, and two more family physicians starting their practices this week, Estevan now has 10 general practitioners, as well as two specialists. One of those specialists also sees patients regularly.
There were wait times in the ER because if an emergency came up, since those remained the priority, but the system worked out well.
“It wasn’t the ideal way to use the emergency room, but we were doing it in order to help the citizens of Estevan and the surrounding areas have a doctor, because we were short of general practitioners,” said Harrison.
The emergency room has seen an increase in the number of people using those services, she said. The average has been around 68 to 70 people per day, as opposed to about 48 per day a year ago.
Adeboye has been busy since coming to Estevan as well, she said. On his first day, he was already booked up for a week.
The arrival of the two new physicians will help alleviate the pressure facing other local doctors.
Harrison said the doctors and the nurses have done very well in the past four months. Everybody stepped up to provide a service because the hospital knew there were a lot of people concerned about not having a doctor.
“The physicians did a great job of coming forward, and so did the nursing staff,” said Harrison.
Harrison said the hospital is confident that with three new physicians, people should be able to find a doctor, and the demands on the emergency room will be eased. The hospital will continue to monitor situation, and physician recruitment efforts will continue.
