Statistics about emergency room visits show that many may not fall under the "emergency" category.

Southern Health-Sante Sud Vice-president of Medical Services Dr. Denis Fortier outlined some statistics for the bigger emergency departments throughout the Southern Health region.

"It looks like the common reason people are coming into the ER, number one which is above all else, in all areas, is abdominal pain," he said. "Followed by shortness of breath or cough, followed up by upper and lower extremity injuries."

Fortier notes departments don't track how these injuries were sustained.

While pain and trouble breathing may be emergencies, Fortier found an interesting statistic for one of the Southern Health ER departments.

"The second most common reason why people were attending the emergency department was for medication, requests for medication refill. That tells me that people are not able to see their primary care provider to get the medication that they need," he said.

Second, Fortier found that people are asking to see a specialist when they come to the ER.

"People are coming into the emergency room as a way to then see their consultant, specialist. So, that doesn't really count, in my eyes, as an emergency visit."

Other common visits to the ER are due to lacerations, chest pain, head aches, and back pain.

"Some of those probably could have been seen in clinics and in the primary care setting. Again, I'm sure many are, but after hours when clinics are closed, if there's no walk in clinic available or the walk in clinic is full, I can understand that some people might be attending Emergency for those, even though they probably could wait."

Fortier further explained that a cueing system is used for the order patients are seen. The system is called 'CTAS 1-5', and sometimes 6.

"So the CTAS 1 for instance, is someone who requires resuscitation... a CTAS 2 is someone who is quite ill and you need to do something relatively quickly to stabilize that person and do some sort of treatment," he said.

Often when ERs seem too busy, Fortier finds it to be due to non-emergency patients seeking treatment.

"What I'm getting at is, most of our emergency departments, in fact all of our emergency departments across the province, see far too many CTAS 4,5 and 6 coming through emergency departments. If we didn't have that group of people coming through... we would have more than enough staff to deal with what is needed," he said.

Fortier believes managing less pressing cases in a different way could help this issue.