PeaceHealth’s emergency department in Bellingham was overwhelmed by patients this week, forcing hours-long waits and the hospital to cancel some elective procedures.
Close to 50 patients were waiting in the emergency room lobby on Tuesday, Feb. 18, with some patients waiting up to eight hours in the lobby before being seen and treated in the emergency department, according to a PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center employee.
It “was a record for total number of patients in the department and total in the lobby waiting,” stated an internal hospital message sent on Wednesday.
At one point, there were more than 100 patients either in the emergency department lobby or being treated, according to the source, an emergency department employee who was granted confidentiality by Cascadia Daily News due to fear of retaliation.
“We had a patient in their 90s wait seven hours,” the employee said. “We had patients with chest pain waiting for hours to be seen, and patients in a crowded environment positive with the flu. It wasn’t a good situation at all.”
PeaceHealth was not immediately able to verify numbers provided to CDN, but did confirm that the hospital was “routinely seeing much higher daily” emergency department numbers than usual in February.
The facility reported “unprecedented patient volumes” in the department due to rising cases of RSV, flu and other emergent health needs, according to a Feb. 19 news release.
The hospital urged those with non-emergency health issues to seek medical care elsewhere. These options include primary care providers, urgent care clinics and PeaceHealth’s priority care clinics, which offer same-day, drop-in care.
“Please know that we treat everyone who visits our Emergency Department, but those with non-emergency needs will most likely have a longer wait time before we are able to care for them,” said Dr. James Scribner, medical director at PeaceHealth St. Joseph’s Emergency Department.
Some elective procedures at the hospital were canceled Wednesday morning. A voicemail left with a patient and shared with CDN stated that “the hospital is full to capacity.”
The patient, Rebecca Youlin, was told to contact her surgeon’s office to reschedule a biopsy procedure she started planning in November.
Youlin was able to reschedule for early March. But, she noted that if the biopsy eventually revealed any concerns, such as cancerous cells, she would be two weeks farther behind fighting it.
While scheduled to be a patient on Wednesday, Youlin is also an ICU nurse at PeaceHealth.
“This whole week has been insane,” she said, noting that she was concerned that the hospital was at capacity.
“[Being at capacity] basically means that if you are sick enough to need a bed in the hospital, you may end up being boarded in the ER until a bed becomes available,” said Youlin, who has been a registered nurse for 15 years. “Believe me, when you are sick enough to be admitted, the ER is the least conducive environment to healing!”
The confidential source at PeaceHealth told CDN that it has become common for part of the hospital’s emergency department to be partially filled with these “boarders” — patients who have been admitted but are awaiting a bed on a different floor.
While Youlin recognized that the nation is facing a particularly bad flu season, she said the community has outgrown the medical facility. This is, in some ways, illustrated by how often a “code white” is declared at the hospital.
A code white from the emergency room is essentially letting staff know they need to get all the patients that have admission orders to their rooms to make space for new patients, Youlin explained.
These code whites are being called on a daily basis, she added.
Everyone is “inundated and slammed,” Youlin said.
PeaceHealth did not respond to a question about the number of code whites called at the facility so far this year.
“We are asking the community to consider other care options for non-emergency healthcare needs so our team can care for the most ill and vulnerable,” Dr. Scribner stated.
Dr. Scribner encouraged anyone with difficulty breathing to come to the ER for an evaluation. He added that for other flu or respiratory virus symptoms, like body aches and coughing, self-care or a visit to a primary care physician or same-day clinic may be a more suitable option.
Isaac Stone Simonelli is CDN’s enterprise/investigations reporter; reach him at isaacsimonelli@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 127.
