BY HEIDI ULRICHSEN
The Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care is taking steps to make acute-care hospital beds in Sudbury available for people who need them the most.
Right now, there are 58 Alternative Level of Care (ALC) patients occupying acute-care beds at Sudbury Regional Hospital while waiting to be placed in nursing or convalescent homes.
These patients are now eligible for transfer to the Lakeland Nursing Home in Parry Sound.
The ministry is expanding the Crisis 1A designation for the Sudbury area to include the Georgian Bay town, which is 160 km away from the city.
Under the designation, which has been in place for over a year, the Manitoulin-Sudbury Community Care Access Centre is already authorized to send people to nursing homes Espanola and Manitoulin Island.
"It is part of the temporary solution. I think it has good potential for us. Now Parry Sound has to staff up, but once they staff up we have patients we can move there," says Sudbury Regional Hospital CEO Vickie Kaminski.
People might not be happy about their family members being moved to Parry Sound, she says, but it helps to solve the bed problem at the hospital.
"They always have priority to come back. It's not where you want to be, but sometimes it's where you have to be, given the crunch that we have right now."
Last month, the ministry approved 15 more interim long-term care beds in Sudbury (10 at the hospital and five at Pioneer Manor) in an attempt to solve the bed shortage.
But things have only gotten worse.
Eleven elective surgeries were cancelled earlier this month because ALC patients were occupying beds needed for acute-care patients. The emergency room has also been overflowing with people who need to be admitted to the hospital.
At last month's hospital board meeting, Kaminski introduced a motion calling on the government to open 20 more interim long-term care beds in the city.
"I think that the ministry is hopeful that the interim long-term care beds are going to be beneficial. They're looking at the call for the additional 20 beds right now," she says.
