Hospital overflows: What's the right strategy?

A Tim Hortons next door to the Royal Columbian Hospital in New Westminster, B.C., became a temporary emergency room Monday night.

Doctors had to set up temporary beds in the closed coffee shop between 11:15 p.m. PT and 12:45 a.m after the hospital was swamped by about 200 patients.

B.C. Health Minister Colin Hansen says the incident shows that the system worked just the way it's supposed to.

"It does happen from time to time that emergency rooms are under tremendous stress because of the number of patients presenting themselves on that day," Hansen said.

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Our CBC community members overwhelmingly disagreed with the health minister on this issue.

"Colin Hansen had best give his head a shake!" said Thucydides. "If the system actually worked patients wouldn't end up in the coffee shop to begin with!"

"Are there any concerns regarding disease control?" asked commenter Meggsy. "If he really is a health minister, he'd be genuinely concerned that the Tim Hortons is now probably full of pathogens that it should not be, simply because a bunch of ill people were put there."

Waiting 4 Godot worried about how this would make Canada's health care system look south of the border. "This kind of action gives all the anti-Obama/anti-government medicare forces in the U.S. more ammunition," wrote Waiting 4 Godot. "And it should be an indictment of our government and a cause of public outrage."

Do you think this is an appropriate overflow strategy for an emergency room? Is the system working as it should? Let us know in the comments below.

(This survey is not scientific. It is based on readers' responses.)