Curb Weekend Effect at Hospitals

Emerg pictureThank you, Mr. Blackwell, for highlighting the old-fashioned, bankers’ hours our hospitals still run on:

Curb ‘weekend effect’ at hospitals to make Saturday or Sunday admittance less risky for patients: study | National Post.

A fellow emergency physician commented:

“The bigger issue for weekends relates to non-MD staff.”

Surgeons want to operate, but there’s no staff to help out due to lack of staff or lack of money to pay staff.

Weekend Effect

Monday remains the busiest day, by far, in emergency departments across North America.

Acute care requires doctors AND nurses, not to mention an army of allied providers. We need to shift routine hospital business into weekend hours, or patients will continue to suffer for it.

Thanks, again, for writing about this!

(photo credit: www.hamiltonhealth.ca)