Western Hospital PEI

Prince Edward Island's first collaborative emergency centre began operating in the evening on Nov. 4, 2013. This new centre will restore 24-hour emergency service to Western Hospital.

For the last several months, the hospital's emergency department has only been open for fourteen hours a day due to a lack of consistent physician coverage. Many of the department's emergency doctors also operate family physician practices, limiting their availability.

The new centre will operate under a model similar to Nova Scotia's collaborative emergency model. During the day, the department will operate as a traditional emergency department, staffed with physicians and nurses. At night, it will be staffed with highly-trained paramedics and emergency nurses, with a physician providing on-call oversight.

"Over the past few months, Health PEI has been working closely with staff, physicians, Island EMS, community partners and stakeholders to sort through various processes to ensure that we are able to seamlessly transition the emergency department at Western Hospital to a Collaborative Emergency Centre during overnight hours," says Dr. Richard Wedge, CEO of Health PEI. "This new model of emergency care is key to ensuring that we are able to offer reliable emergency and primary health care services to our patients and residents when they need it."

Officials say this model will ensure stable emergency services while improving access to primary care services.

"This new model will ensure that the doors at Western Hospital remain open 24 hours a day and free up our family physicians, allowing for an additional 140 primary care patient appointments per week," says PEI's Minister of Health and Wellness Doug Currie.