Paul Heinrich, North Bay Regional Health Centre CEO, is hoping the news of changes to health care by the province is a step in the right direction.
Heinrich says the hospital is working above its capacity. It had 386 beds a year and a half ago and that has ballooned into 418 beds with about 20 of those hallway beds. He says that even means adult patients have been forced to stay in the pediatric unit.
“The reason we have hallway medicine is because it is outside of acute, but because the other parts of the system are not functioning that well, we end up having to put patients anywhere and everywhere,” admitted Heinrich.
“When really they should be cared for in a different setting.”
See related: Your healthcare to undergo big changes
Christine Elliott, Minister of Health and Long Term Care, says a long-term plan to fix and strengthen the public health care system will focus directly on the needs of Ontario’s patients and families. A new central agency will be called "Ontario Health."
“Our government is taking a comprehensive, pragmatic approach to addressing the public health care system,” said Nipissing MPP Vic Fedeli in a release earlier this week.
“By relentlessly focusing on patient experience, and on better-connected care, we will reduce wait times and end hallway health care. Residents in Nipissing can be confident that there will be a sustainable health care system for them when and where they need it.”
Heinrich is hoping the integration through that new central agency will help.
“What the government is saying to us is we are going to force better integration and they are very serious about it, they are moving quickly and basically we have to have more integration. That is why we are failing patients today. It is because every time we do a transition between one part of care to another, and the capacity or the will power or the effort is not there. We get the patient bounced right back to us,” said Heinrich.
“It does not matter what we do we have created a transitional care unit which is essentially a short-term, long-term care home. We have renovated the hospital to be able to fit more people in. We are paying fees so we can move patients.”