Manitoba’s Southern Health-Santé Sud VP of Medical Services, Dr. Denis Fortier, outlined statistics for ERs throughout the Regional Health Authority. The top reasons people were coming into the ER was for abdominal pain, shortness of breath or cough, followed by extremity injuries. While these may be emergencies, Fortier pointed out that for one of the ERs, the second top reason for going to the ER was for medication and requests for medication refill. Fortier wants to point out this means people aren’t able to see their primary care provider to get the medication the need. Also, he notes, people are using the ER to see their consultant or specialist. He notes that all of the province’s ER’s see far too many of these cases and if they didn't have that group of people coming through, they would have more than enough staff to deal with what’s needed.
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