NBHC Care Experience
August 08, 2017
According to Ambulance New Brunswick data, paramedics in the province waited for nearly 1,000 hours last year to unload their patients, these "offload delays" are logged whenever paramedics wait more than 25 minutes for hospital staff to take over the care of a patient. The delays, according to experts, "represent a real problem with hospital crowding." At the heart of the issue is a backlog of admitted patients in the emergency department awaiting a bed in the hospital, many of which are already taken up by individuals awaiting a bed in a long-term care facility.