{"id":174419,"date":"2025-09-28T02:44:27","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T02:44:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/174419\/"},"modified":"2025-09-28T02:44:27","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T02:44:27","slug":"patients-in-nova-scotia-leaving-er-before-being-treated-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/174419\/","title":{"rendered":"Patients in Nova Scotia leaving ER before being treated: Report"},"content":{"rendered":"

The overburdened and backlogged heath care system in Nova Scotia is resulting in people going to emergency rooms and then leaving without treatment<\/a>, a new report details.<\/p>\n

According to data from MEI, a Canadian think tank organization, last year numbers reveal that 9.8 per cent of Nova Scotians left the hospital before receiving treatment. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis marks a worsening trend, with the ratio of patients leaving surging by 53.9 per cent since 2019,\u201d the report suggests.<\/p>\n

Across the country last year, the average was 7.8 per cent who walked away without treatmen<\/a>t, which is less than Nova Scotia\u2019s. The report notes that the data doesn\u2019t include people living in Saskatchewan or under New Brunswick\u2019s Vitalit\u00e9 Sant\u00e9 health network.<\/p>\n

Dr. Matthew Clarke, chief medical information officer at N.S. Health and emergency department physician said these numbers are not surprising for people.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think no question we obviously as a system and as healthcare providers want to make sure we provide care to everybody who needs it in the best way that we can,\u201d he said. \u201cSo certainly, when we see numbers like this, it\u2019s concerning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clarke said the question providers like him and governments have is how to fix this. Part of the issue, he said, is how complex the system is.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a lot of pieces, so I don\u2019t know that there\u2019s one individual solution that would fix numbers like this,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

In his experience, Clarke said that when he\u2019s working in an ER, there are people who come because they\u2019re worried they are experiencing a medical emergency, but others just don\u2019t know where to go and can\u2019t wait weeks to see a doctor.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost patients, if they could find care elsewhere, would,\u201d he said. \u201cI think it\u2019s important to think about those patients as well and say, what options do we have available in our system to help people find care that is not the emergency department when that\u2019s appropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just increasing family doctors or nurse practitioners, Clarke said; making sure there are urgent clinics and mobile centres is part of the solution to giving more people access. <\/p>\n

The report from MEI notes that half of the patients who left emergency departments in Nova Scotia were classified as having cases that are non-life-threatening but still required urgent medical care. The report suggests that those who still need care but are forced to leave \u201coften end up suffering from
worsening conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

According to Clarke, the problems are not just a lack of nurses or doctors in hospitals but also infrastructure issues and confusion in the system. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a lot of different factors that play here, I think part of the equation is the number of providers that we have in our system, but like with anything, it\u2019s how we manage the resources that we have,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

One of those issues concerning the emergency department is a lack of beds available in the hospital, forcing patients to stay in the ER. Awareness of which professional treats what is also a factor, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s fantastic that we\u2019ve enhanced the scope for a pharmacist<\/a> as an example, but if we don\u2019t help patients connect with a pharmacist who can manage the issue that they have when it\u2019s appropriate, it means we have more work to do,\u201d Clarke said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The overburdened and backlogged heath care system in Nova Scotia is resulting in people going to emergency rooms…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":174420,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392],"class_list":{"0":"post-174419","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-healthcare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}