Surrey Memorial Hospital's expanded emergency was reporting crowding soon after it opened.

image credit: Black Press files

VICTORIA The annual ritual of declaring a crisis in health care is upon us, with the B.C. Liberal government boasting that we have the best system in Canada, while the NDP and the B.C. Nurses Union try to portray it as the worst.

The BCNU is the last big public sector union still to settle in the latest round of contract talks. Feeding horror stories to the media is part of its strategy, and this time it was a patient at Abbotsford Hospital assigned a bed in a small shower room for a month due to chronic overcrowding. Hospital officials said his care wasnt compromised.

Weve seen it in Abbotsford, Surrey and elsewhere: a new hospital or expansion is built and is immediately overcrowded. We are reminded every winter that influenza season brings a wave of people into emergency, expecting treatment for a viral infection that in most cases can only run its course.

The problem peaks around Christmas, when more patients than usual use ER as their walk-in clinic.

Many people still dont understand what the flu is, beyond the notion thatitsounds serious enough to tell the boss you wont be in to work. And as fewer doctors choose the endless demands of family practice, the expectation that all problems must be dealt with quickly and for free seems to grow as inexorably as the health care budget.

An emergency physician of my acquaintance provided a typical scenario for night shift at the ER. Where once nights were quiet, now there are patients waiting for hours, around the clock.

Several are drunk, and one has urinated on the floor. Surveys show as many as half of ER visits are alcohol-related, from overdoses to fights, falls, car crashes and chronic conditions.

Read the original here:

Annual health care crisis grips B.C.