Hospital still running over capacity

Sault Area Hospital keeps experiencing high levels of occupancy and operating at over 100 per cent capacity, having an impact on SAH’s emergency department (ED) wait times for admitted patients, staffing and finances.

“We continue to have alternate level of care patients here, exceeding 20 per cent of our overall occupancy, so that’s definitely one of our key drivers, people waiting for a long term care bed,” said Ron Gagnon, SAH president and CEO, speaking to reporters after the open portion of Monday’s SAH board of directors meeting.

A SAH report presented Monday showed one person out of 10 in the ED may wait 31.7 hours, higher than SAH’s target of 24 hours.

The remaining nine out of 10 patients wait less time than that.

“In September its been up substantially because of volumes. Every single day the volume is a pressure and there are many physicians  meeting four or five times a day at what are the plans to allow people to move, to get home, or move people from the emergency room up.”

Gagnon said “a number of those days its been people needing to access mental health and addictions services, today being one of those. Today we had five or six people waiting to get into mental health and addictions services.”

The ALC situation doesn’t seem to be solvable anytime soon.

“The last time I looked, when you look at the number of people on the waiting list for a long term care bed in Sault Ste. Marie and Algoma, and when you factor in how many people get placed every month, it would take over two and a half years to satisfy the waiting list, so there’s a pretty significant demand,” Gagnon said.

Gagnon said there is effort being made by the province to look at how much capacity is needed, and investment along with it, to address the need to accommodate ALC patients in long term care.

“There would definitely need to be investment (government funding), but there’s lots of great work happening in rehabilitative care. Our second floor here involves the whole restorative care strategy which allows people to go home instead of long term care, and that’s happening across the province as well.”

“As the population gets older, the capacity isn’t as available in the system, whether its long term care or other community supports…it isn’t unique to Sault Ste. Marie, it’s happening around the province and I do know the province is investing in transitional care strategies, so we’ve made a submission to the Northeast LHIN on that, and ultimately the Ministry of Health will decide.”

More transitional care, Gagnon said, might involve more rehabilitation and more convalescent beds in the community, along with more supportive housing.

Meanwhile, some elective surgeries, such as hip and knee replacements, continue to be cancelled at SAH.

“We unfortunately have had some (elective surgeries cancelled) this month,” Gagnon said.

“It has an impact on peoples lives even though their classified as ‘elective’ surgeries. They don’t feel ‘elective’ when you’re experiencing pain every day.”

Those cancelled surgeries, Gagnon said, are mostly rescheduled by SAH, without patients having to leave town to have those procedures done.

In other SAH news, Gagnon’s report to the board stated “there is anticipation that this year’s flu season will be more severe than what has been experienced over the last number of years. Public Health organizations continue to stress that the best protection is to get the flu shot. Flu shots will be available to staff, volunteers and physicians beginning the week of Oct. 17.” 

“It (the flu shot) continues to be the number one recommendation to combat the spread of flu and the public health agencies are saying its still your number one defence, its not a guarantee, but its one of the recommended public health measures to prevent the spread of flu.”

SAH staff, Gagnon said, are not required to get the flu shot but “it is highly recommended by us that staff, physicians and volunteers get the flu shot.”

Gagnon urged the public to call their family doctor or contact Algoma Public Health for more information about getting a flu shot.