Increasing number of Sudbury patients re-admitted to hospital after discharge

The number of people being urgently re-admitted to hospital within 30 days after discharge is up in Ontario, especially in Sudbury and the northeastern part of the province, according to the Canadian Institute of Health Information.

The institute found the rate rose from 8.8 per cent to 9.6 per cent in the region between 2009 and 2014. In Ontario, the rate rose from 8.3 per cent to 9.1 per cent during the same time.

The Canadian Institute for Health Information describes itself as an independent, not-for-profit corporation that aims to contribute to the improvement of the health of Canadians and the health care system by disseminating quality health information.

Dr. Chris Bourdon, chief of staff at Health Sciences North, says he too has seen an rise in re-admissions but that early discharge is only one card in a complex house.

"It's not just this card that makes this house crumble. The other cards include access to long-term care beds, access to community service, including physiotherapy, occupational therapy, personal support."

Bourdon did say that there is no doubt some people would benefit from another 12 or 24 hours in hospital before being discharged and that the issue of re-admittance is being studied.

"Perhaps the answer, the way to solve this, may well mean keeping patients in a half day, a day, two days longer for certain conditions," he said. "However, this is a complex house of cards."

Michael Hurley, of the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions, says frozen hospital budgets and rising costs create pressure to turn over beds quickly.

"We're whipping people out of the hospital as quickly as we can because we don't have enough beds. A hospital like Sudbury Regional Hospital, for example, is actually operating at about  probably 100-per-cent capacity most of the time," he said.