Machias and Calais- Due to staffing shortages created by the vaccine mandate, the inability to transfer psychiatric and long-term care patients, and the general delays in transferring patients that need a higher level of care to larger facilities, we are experiencing significant delays in the emergency departments at both Down East Community Hospital and Calais Community Hospital. All of these issues reduce the number of Emergency Room beds we have available and can result in increased wait times. Staff are utilizing our triage processes to make sure the patients with the most critical needs are seen first so please be patient if you have non-urgent or non-emergency needs.
These issues are being experienced throughout Maine and the rest of New England and are not unique to our facilities. The Emergency Department is still open and ready to serve our communities, but we want to make everyone aware of the unprecedented circumstances under which we are operating at this time. We understand these issues can cause frustration and create inconveniences, but we expect everyone to be respectful to our staff. Our nurses, ED techs, registration staff, security, and physicians have been working extremely hard throughout this pandemic and under very stressful conditions to make sure emergency services are available to the communities we serve, and they deserve to be treated with respect regardless of the current circumstances.
We are all hopeful these conditions improve soon, and we can get back to providing the level of care everyone expects from both organizations.