Province adds 75 hospital bed spaces in northeastern Ontario

As all major hospitals in northeastern Ontario deal with overcrowding, the province is spending money to add more beds.

Across Ontario, more than 1,200 additional hospital bed spaces are being added and 75 of those will be in the northeast.

The director of the hospital sector with the Northeast Local Health Integration Network, Marc Demers, says the additional beds will help deal with overcrowding at larger hospitals.

"Right now, most of them are either at capacity or over capacity," he said.

"So it comes at a good time considering we're just entering flu season when we're going to start to the feel the largest amount of pressure within our hospitals."

The beds will be divided among four hospitals in northeastern Ontario. Health Sciences North in Sudbury will get 16 beds, the Sault Area Hospital will get eight, the Timmins and District Hospital will get eight beds as well and the North Bay Regional Health Center. In addition, four short-term transitional care spaces will be added in Sudbury.

An additional 31 beds will also be added in northeastern Ontario in the coming months, Demers said. He says after the first rounds of beds are opened, the LHIN will work with hospitals to see where there is still overcrowding.

Demers says he's not sure where those beds will go, but says they will likely be in a larger hospital.

"When it comes to hospital beds, generally it's best to increase them in clusters," he said.

"Even beds that open up in larger centres that actually indirectly helps the smaller centres as well because they are the referring centres."