Ontario spending $7.8M for 34 beds at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre
Michelle Allan | CBC News | Posted: October 5, 2023 5:18 PM | Last Updated: October 5, 2023
New beds have been identified as key issue in northwestern Ontario
Ontario's health minister announced funding for 34 beds at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre (TBRHSC), saying the government will spend up to $7.8 million "to continue to support Alternative Level of Care transitional beds and acute mental health beds" at TBRHSC.
Alternative Level of Care (ALC) is a term hospitals use to describe "patients who occupy a bed but do not require the intensity of services provided in that care setting," according to the The Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI).
This funding is part of a $1.18 billion province-wide investment to aims to "continue supporting over 3,500 hospital beds across Ontario," said Sylvia Jones at a media event Thursday.
It was not specified whether the province's efforts to "continue supporting" beds meant funding additional physical beds, additional staff, or funding existing beds and/or staff.
TBRHSC has previously struggled to staff all of their transitional care beds. While the hospital has operated up to 64 staffed transitional care beds in the past, as of November 2021 they were only able to use half of them due to a nursing shortage.
Inadequate staffing in hospitals around Ontario is at the root of a growing number of complaints from patients, the province's health-system watchdog reported earlier this year.
Ontario's hospitals have struggled with staffing shortages for the past year. Emergency room wait times spiked last spring, then some smaller ERs were closed at times last summer for lack of staff, then the spread of respiratory viruses swamped hospitals with patients last fall.
Funding for mental health beds needed
Northwestern Ontario has been disproportionately impacted by mental health and addiction crises. Thunder Bay has previously called for more mental health beds — St. Joseph's Care Group asked the provincial government to fund a new 40-bed mental health and addictions crisis centre in March 2021. This centre was not built.
Jones said that while provincial funding for mental and addictions health supports at the ER level is a priority, federal and municipal governments needed to also fund preventative measures.
"This is a societal problem that we are going to have to deal with multi-jurisdictionally and and multi-government-wise otherwise, frankly, those issues, those problems, those concerns end up in an emergency department rooms," Jones said.
MPP for Thunder Bay—Atikokan Kevin Holland described the TBRHSC beds as "much needed".
"With this investment, we are further solidifying our status as a hub for cutting edge healthcare in northwestern Ontario," said Holland.
The minister also said the province plans to fund the development of a comprehensive cardiovascular surgery program at TBRHSC.