People that provide care to loved ones at the North Bay Regional Health Centre are expressing their frustration at what they see as hospital roadblocks to helping care for patients that are often close relatives.
A group called the North Bay Regional Health Centre Primary Caregivers have written a letter to CEO Paul Heinrich asking why it sometimes takes over an hour waiting in line to care for loved ones.
Care Partners are different from casual visitors; they are family, friends, neighbours, colleagues, and community members who provide critical and often ongoing personal, social, psychological, and physical support, assistance and care to patients in the hospital.
"Many of us that visit patients at the hospital are frustrated and are seeking answers from the hospital," says the group."This is being written on behalf of many visitors that visit loved ones at the hospital."
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The group says it understands that only primary caregivers are allowed to visit and it is only one visit a day.
"We are very grateful to have the time you have given us during this pandemic, therefore, we don’t want this message to come off as 'ungrateful bitter visitors.' We follow all of your rules when we visit and try to be as pleasant as possible to your staff since they are doing their job and following hospital policy, but would it be possible for the hospital to see things from our point of view a bit and understand our frustration?"
The group says the hospital currently has two people to register visitors situated at the information desk and that is causing a bottleneck.
"The other day employee 1 would wait for employee 2 to find the patient name before she would take down our contact information, so she sat there watching the other girl and did nothing until employee 2 said ok, then employee 2 watched employee 1 while she took our name, contact information, patient’s information and then made the name tag. Why have 2 employees if they aren’t going to tag team?"
The caregiver's letter says, "Many of us have been stuck in that line for over an hour. (we aren’t exaggerating!) We only have two hours to visit, therefore is it fair to have two employees but not utilize their time efficiently? Some of us are there every day visiting our parents or loved ones.
"If we are there every day, do they need our contact information every time?"
The group just found out that another roadblock has been put in place.
Effective immediately staff have to call the units for each visitor causing an even longer delay.
"I’ve seen people in line bringing lunch for their loved ones such as a coffee, a hamburger etc… an hour later, the food and coffee aren’t good anymore. Some of us are there to feed our loved ones because they are no longer able to do that by themselves, and it helps the staff, but we miss the lunch hour due to the extremely long waits in line. We get there at 11 but by the time we get cleared and reach the unit it is 12:00-12:30."
The letter points out that other hospitals have two or three employees forming separate lines taking down information to get the lines moving.
"Is there a reason why the employees at the desk can’t form two lines to make it go quicker? We don’t understand, therefore maybe we need to hear from the CEO or an executive explaining to us their system. It would help our frustration.
"It might be 'just a visit' to you but for us it means the world to be able to see our loved ones and ensure they are fed at lunch. Some patients we are visiting have Alzheimer’s and these visits are extremely important to them; this is all they have to look forward to; they are like children and don’t understand."
The group is asking Heinrich to meet them half way.
"It seems like you are dangling the carrot by saying we can visit, but then you put up roadblocks preventing us from making it in on time to visit," says the caregiver's letter.
BayToday contacted the hospital fora response.
In an emailed statement, Kim McElroy, Manager of Communications & Volunteer Department wrote, "As we are working through our new normal, we do find the wait to enter the building can sometimes take longer.
"The North Bay Regional Health Centre believes care partners are an important part of our hospital community.
"Like all hospitals across Ontario, our Health Centre had to make many changes to protect our patients, staff, and physicians, including restricting access to our facility and additional screening measures (including contact tracing). We know these changes can be difficult for families and loved ones with a patient receiving care at our hospital.
"As part of the hospital community, we welcome the opportunity to discuss directly with care partners any feedback about the patient and family experience to help us provide the best care possible."
