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HSC seeing increase in deaths at emergency department

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The Health Sciences Centre (HSC) has seen a steady increase in deaths at its emergency department over the last few years.

On Thursday, Shared Health provided data to CTV News Winnipeg showing the number of emergency department visits and deaths from 2019 up to March 2, 2023.

According to this data, from 2019 to 2022 the number of deaths increased by 56, while overall emergency department visits fell by more than 17,000.

Shared Health is also reporting that over this four-year span, HSC saw an increase in high-acuity emergency visits. In 2019, there were 11,740 high-acuity visits, with this number steadily rising to 14,816 in 2022.

The following are the numbers provided by Shared Health regarding emergency department visits versus deaths:

  • In 2019 there were 70,237 visits and 114 deaths;
  • In 2020 there were 58,829 visits and 147 deaths;
  • In 2021 there were 54, 2017 visits and 163 death; and
  • In 2022 there were 54,777 visits and 170 deaths.

As of March 2, 2023, there have been 8,958 visits to HSC emergency and 21 deaths.

According to a Shared Health spokesperson, patients coming to an emergency department are often experiencing severe illness or injury. The spokesperson added that there a number of reasons for the increase in emergency department deaths, but the most significant is the growth of high-acuity patients.

“More than 3,000 additional high-acuity patients were seen at HSC’s adult emergency department in 2022 than in 2019,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

“The increase in high-acuity volumes is unlike the experience of many similarly sized Canadian hospitals, which saw decreases during the same time period.”

Shared Health noted that other factors that may have contributed to the increase in deaths are the COVID-19 mortality rate; an increase in substance misuse; the aging population with complex health needs; the consolidation of stroke services at HSC; and delays in people seeking care during the earlier stages of the pandemic.

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