Long term care patients continue to drive hospital bed gridlock

Superior Morning4:38Still Gridlock

Gridlock at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre. We'll hear what a 14-million dollar investment by the province has done to deal with the problem. Aaron Skillen is an interim VP of Patient Services at the hospital

Despite a $14 million cash investment from the province earlier this year, Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre continues to have a backlog of alternate level of care patients.

A report to the hospital board last week, from interim vice-president Aaron Skillen, said 52 beds were still occupied by patients waiting for placement outside the hospital.

Skillen noted that, while there are fewer alternate level of care patients in hospital now, they are spending more time in there.

“That proportion of days for those types of patients is actually increasing,” he said.

“And some of the acute care days are being diminished, just a little bit."      

The hospital has been in gridlock for about 85 per cent of this year, he added. That's nearly 20 more days than the gridlock totals for all 12 months of last year.

The main issue remains a lack of beds for seniors in the community.

"Alternate level of care days are certainly a function of patients waiting, and waiting on care destinations that are outside of Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre,” Skillen continued.

“The most notable may be our long term care home sector here, locally. The biggest population of individuals waiting for a long-term-care home placement are actually waiting in the community, in a residential home setting, right now.”

Skillen added he hopes the hospital will be able to respond better to any surge in patients when the flu season arrives.