While Health Sciences North officials plan for the future, staff, patients and their families continue to feel the squeeze today of too many patients in too few beds at Ramsey Lake Health Centre.
HSN president and chief executive officer Dominic Giroux spoke to the Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce on Feb. 13, telling members 2018 was a challenging year for the institution and that the first six weeks of 2019 are following that same trend.
Wednesday morning, 46 patients had been admitted to hospital via the emergency department and were languishing in beds and gurneys while another 46 patients were being accommodated in “unconventional bed spaces,” said Giroux. Those spaces include television rooms, linen storage areas and other locations where beds and patients can be tucked in.
Putting those numbers in perspective, Giroux pointed out the chamber luncheon was attended by 130 people at 17 tables in a ballroom at the Radisson Hotel. He asked audience members to mentally erase three tables of attendees. The remaining 14 tables of guests were roughly the same number as the 92 people waiting at HSN who are not being cared for in proper medical rooms.
In all of 2018, there were only 18 days when HSN was not at overcapacity, said Giroux. That means for 347 days last year, the hospital was at more than 100 per cent occupancy.
Despite the daily challenges of overcrowding, HSN’s staff continues to provide “exceptional, compassionate care,” said Giroux.
The former Laurentian University president, who spoke to the chamber exactly one year ago, said HSN had a forecast deficit of $13 million last year. It was pared down to $11.1 million, but it was still the largest deficit of Ontario’s 23 academic hospitals. HSN is on target to have a balanced budget by the end of this fiscal year, March 31. But it took job cuts to administration and hourly workers, as well as a reduction in hours for some employees, to put the books back in the black.
Giroux pointed out that a third-party review of HSN’s operations, called for by the North East Local Health Integration Network, found only $300,000 more in savings in the hospital’s $520-million budget.
Despite cost-cutting measures, it wasn’t all bad news last year, he said. HSN made improvements such as reducing wait times for CT scans for people in the emergency department from 13 hours to two, and for patients in hospital from 23 hours to seven. It garnered $21 million for the learners’ centre, received a whopping $5-million donation from the Labelle family and officially closed the books on the construction of the one-site hospital, which opened in 2010.
That was done with an additional $7 million in funding from the province.
Giroux said it is no coincidence pressure is increasing while hospital funding has only increased 3.5 per cent in three years.
The former Laurentian University president, who started at HSN in October 2017, said the one-site hospital planned after the amalgamation of three acute hospitals did not happen and that there are 13 hospital sites operating in the city.
He presented details of the five-year strategic plan HSN unveiled last week saying it was necessary if HSN was to continue providing high-quality health care. The plan has given Health Sciences North and Health Sciences North Research Institute renewed purpose, said Giroux.
He outlined some of the highlights of the plan such as the acquisition of a second MRI to reduce wait times for the diagnostic procedure, external reviews of medical departments to remain cutting edge and improvements to patient admission and discharge experiences at the hospital.
A key component of the strategic plan is the creation of a new capital master plan, expected to be completed by May. It will include plans to increase the number of beds and reduce the number of sites at HSN. The centre tower of Ramsey Lake Health Centre is three storeys high and was designed so floors could be added to it. Thirty user groups are involved in the capital plan process, charged with envisioning what health care will look like in 20 years, said Giroux.
“Northerners know that Health Sciences North was built too small,” he said.
A major goal is “digitally enabling” the hospital. People can book trips to Europe online, said Giroux, but they can’t access their medical rest results. HSN is looking to create a patient portal where people can get that information online.
Giroux hinted the former Sudbury Memorial Hospital, now the Sudbury Outpatient Clinic, might be one of the sites to be closed. It opened in 1956 when his mother was 14 years old, said Giroux, and was supposed to close in 2010.
Carol Mulligan is an award-winning reporter and one of Greater Sudbury’s most experienced journalists.
