Yukon hospital bed shortage prompts minister to call meeting

Yukon Health Minister Mike Nixon has been spurred to action by an impassioned letter from a long-time surgeon lamenting the shortage of beds at Whitehorse General Hospital.

Nixon is asking the chair of the Yukon Hospital Corporation, Craig Tuton, to meet with himself as well as doctors' and nurses' representatives to try to come up with solutions to the ongoing problem.

"The issue of bed availability and the impact on certain surgeries, as well as the impact on the doctors and nurses within the hospital, is a matter that has been front of mind for several years," Nixon writes, in an open letter to Tuton.

"Acting together, I am sure that we can develop and implement short-term solutions to help alleviate the pressure."

Surgeries cancelled

Nixon said his letter to Tuton was prompted by another open letter, sent to local newspapers, from David Storey, a longtime surgeon at Whitehorse General Hospital. 

In it, Storey describes the hospital's urgent and "critical" needs for beds and staff.

He describes how some surgeries at the hospital — including a mastectomy for cancer, and a gallbladder operation for chronic pain — have recently been cancelled because there were no beds for those patients before or after their surgeries.

"I have literally seen our wonderful clinical nurse leaders crying out of exasperation. No matter how hard they try we seem stymied," Storey wrote.

"Are there risks to patients? Of course there are. Is there suffering? Of course there is. I don't believe our leaders have any idea how much."

Storey has spoken out before about the lack of beds at the hospital — in 2014 — and his recent letter laments that little has been done since then to address the "crisis."

"The promises and platitudes sound exactly the same," he wrote.

We're finding solutions, says hospital CEO

Yukon Hospital Corporation CEO Jason Bilsky admits the hospital has struggled for years with a shortage of beds.

"Yes, it is under pressure, there's no doubt that it's under pressure," he said.

But he rejects the "misconception" that the hospital has not been looking for solutions.  

"Respectfully, that's where Dr. Storey and I are going to disagree — in that, the tone of the letter would say that we have been doing nothing," Bilsky said. 

"Our efforts have been, I would say, extraordinary over the past two years to try and manage the bed state."

Bilsky said the current hospital expansion project isn't expected to solve the bed shortage because it's focused on emergency care, with a new emergency unit.  

He says the "real relief" will come when the new Whistle Bend continuing care facility opens in two years. Many hospital beds are now taken up by patients requiring non-acute, long-term care.

In the meantime, he says the hospital has tried other ways to alleviate pressure and improve care — for example, by hiring additional nursing staff, or looking at different ways of providing care to elderly acute care patients, and improving the "flow of patients throughout the system."

"To take a look at the entire system, there are things that I would say work very well, in spite of all the pressures that we're seeing," Bilsky said.