Have patience please, patients
Stanton Regional Hospital's emergency ward handled 18,000 patients last year

Dane Gibson
Northern News Services

NNSL (Feb 19/99) - A man leans forlornly on his crutches. A Yellowknife Correctional Centre officer stands, arms crossed, over a sleeping figure and a little girl in the back sounds like she's coughing up a lung.

Welcome to Stanton Regional Hospital's emergency ward, a tiny corner of the facility that handled 18,000 patients last year.

"There's excellent teamwork within the hospital to respond to the varying nature of our department," ambulatory services manager Lona Heinzig said.

"Because our workload fluctuates so much, when it gets extremely busy we're able to make use of expertise from other areas of the hospital."

Heinzig is the first to admit that Emergency's waiting room can be a frustrating place, despite help from other areas. There are four categories you fall into when you enter Emergency: Booked appointments, non-urgent, urgent and emergent.

With average wait times varying between a few hours for booked appointments to 1.3 minutes for life- threatening situations, those patients caught in the middle may lose patience.

"We sympathize with those who have to wait but what those patients can't see is our staff in the back who are dealing with a sick child or an individual with chest pain or breathing difficulties," Heinzig said, adding there's only one doctor on the floor at a time.

"If the physician on staff is caught up in an emergent situation, the rest of the people can't be seen until the patient is stabilized."

There are between 15 and 20 Yellowknife doctors, most of whom have family practices, rotating 12-hour shifts in Emergency. After more than six years taking her turn, Dr. Nancy Gabel has seen it all.

"A lot of things that come in are classified non-emergency so when a true emergency comes in, it gets interesting," Gabel said.

"We see a lot of drug and alcohol overdoses and trauma as a result of Ski-Doo, knife and bar-related accidents."

She said in many cases, they're patching up repeat visitors.

"It's frustrating, especially when we see the same people coming in with the same problems but I couldn't call it disappointing," Gabel said.

"I don't see it as disappointing anymore because from a doctor's perspective, you can't let things become personal. In Emergency, it's our job to fix the immediate problems, period."

She said being the only doctor in the department can be trying at times, but at no time has she been unable to perform her duties.

"I can say I've never felt in an emergency situation that we were understaffed," Gabel said.

"Certainly, we've suffered from funding cutbacks as everyone in Canada has, but for the most part I think we do very well."

Gabel admits one of the toughest parts of working a small-town Emergency ward is having to treat friends and acquaintances who come in badly injured. Sheila Laity, after five years working as an Emergency nurse, agrees.

She remembers one shift where a child came in with critical injuries. The same night, another child died.

"You still have clinical tasks you have to do even though you have the emotions of knowing the person you're caring for," Laity said.

"There have been times where I've taken my tears into the parking lot."

One of the things on Heinzig's new year's wish list is to find more space for the doctor, two registered nurses and one assistant who staff Emergency. Currently, they're managing with six cramped rooms plus the trauma room.

"I think the staff here have been very creative in making the best of a very small area," Heinzig said.

"Because we're limited by the number of rooms we have, more people have to wait. That can be frustrating for the public and the nursing staff."