N.S. patients waited for more than 70 hours in the ER for hospital admission

Paul Wozney says he received a blunt assessment of an overcrowded emergency room where he was told some patients had been waiting over 70 hours.

“It’s Armageddon here.”

Wozney, an NDP member of the Nova Scotia legislature, told The Canadian Press a health care worker gave him this description when they called in the middle of their shift on Tuesday, which they called the “worst day on record.”

Wozney said the worker was fed up and concerned with the standard of care and wait times at the Cobequid Community Health Centre.

The Cobequid centre in Lower Sackville, N.S. is in a suburban neighbourhood of the Halifax region and has no inpatient facilities. Patients who need more acute care would have to travel roughly 20 kilometres to hospitals in Halifax or Dartmouth.

On Tuesday, 18 of the health centre’s 26 emergency beds were filled by patients waiting to transfer to a larger hospital. Many of these were patients waiting to get admitted to acute care for cardiac issues, strokes or major bone breaks.

“These folks were sitting, housed in the ER, in settings that aren’t equipped to meet their needs for over three days,” Wozney said.

When these kinds of backlogs happen, staff aren’t able to treat as many patients that come through the emergency department, Wozney added.

Staff had to turn away one individual who suffered a stroke, and they did not have the capacity to treat them, he said.

Wozney detailed his phone call with the health care worker in a letter to Health Minister Michelle Thompson.

“I ask you to take immediate action to remedy the extreme pressures the CCHC Emergency department, care team and patients are facing,” Wozney wrote in the letter. “I request that you communicate to the people of Sackville-Cobequid when your government will deliver on its promise to expand this facility.”

Thompson was not immediately available for comment.

This is not the first time the Cobequid centre has dealt with a backlog. In 2022, Wozney said there was a period where 11 patients waited for an inpatient transfer for over 70 hours. The health centre also regularly closes its emergency department between midnight and 7 a.m.

In 2022, the Houston government announced a planned expansion to the Cobequid centre. At the time, the government planned to add a building which would create 36 in-patient beds, and assess the existing emergency department for a possible expansion or even replacement.

“The minister, all she’ll say is that (the expansion) is being considered,” Wozney said. “Politics aside, real people with real health care needs deserve real answers.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2025.