BY CRAIG GILBERT
Faced with a $720 per day charge at the Sudbury Regional Hospital, many families have no choice but to stand by and watch as their parents and grandparents are shipped hundreds of kilometres away for the care they require.
An overflow of long-term care patients at SRH and a lack of beds in Sudbury is forcing administration to discharge several to nursing homes across the catchment area of the Manitoulin-Sudbury Community Care Access Centre (MSCCAC).
There is a limited supply here, but there are beds in Chapleau, Espanola and on Manitoulin Island according to SRH vice-president of clinical services, Dave MacNeil.
?It?s a hard situation that we have to be sensitive to,? he repeated often in a telephone interview. ?Everyone has to cooperate.?
A number patients currently receiving long-term care at the hospital will have to soon choose between three options: submit to the transfer, go home and have family members or a home worker continue to provide the care needed, or pay $720 per day to stay at SRH.
MacNeil wouldn?t even get into ballpark figures as to how many patients would be affected.
The number of beds in the city varies on almost an hourly basis, he said.
The mechanism that allows the hospital to discharge long-term care patients is called a Class 1A Crisis Designation.
Imposed by the province, it basically means long-term care patients have to take the first bed available to them without the luxury of waiting in-hospital for a bed at a facility of their choice.
Though there are long-term care beds in the hospital, providing such care is not in the hospital?s mandate.
?No one else provides acute care,? said MacNeil. ?We had this kind of pressure last year as well. The capacity has been growing, but the need is up as well.?
Two information meetings were held Wednesday for family members of those patients affected.
