Dharm Makwana

Breakdowns in the province’s healthcare system are putting hospital emergency rooms on life support, according to a B.C. Nurses Union official.

“If emergency wards are functioning properly the patients come in, get assessed, and treated then triaged to the units or the proper wards where they can be looked after,” said Janice Buchanan, the union’s vice-president. “They’re not meant to have admitted patients languishing in their hallways.”

Buchanan’s comments came Monday outside New Westminster’s Royal Columbian Hospital where a month earlier the Tim Hortons outlet in the institution was used as a sickbay to treat four patients for 90 minutes. At the time, then health minister Colin Hansen defended the use of the coffee shop.

Since then, the provincial government has broken ground for new developments at Surrey Memorial Hospital and B.C. Children’s and Women’s Hospitals in Vancouver.

Buchanan, unconvinced expansion plans can take pressure off triage wards, wants funding restored to outpatient programs and community health centres to treat people outside an emergency setting.

“The focus has been on acute care … when they need to start putting more funding into primary care, community health centres, programs that keep patients at home,” she said. “Patients would far rather be at home.”