Watch above: They are safe from a medical perspective but the Saskatoon Health Region is putting an end to what many call ‘hallway medicine’ spaces. Wendy Winiewski explains why this is happening at a time when hospitals are operating overcapacity.
SASKATOON – Plagued by capacity issues, the Saskatoon Health Region (SHR) announced Thursday it is closing 20 patient beds. Although it may sound like a step in the wrong direction, the SHR says it points to continuous improvement.
“These are beds that, they’re in a space that was designed to have two beds for instance, and over time we’ve put a third bed in there,” explained Nilesh Kavia, the region’s vice-president.
“Many of them don’t have curtains, many of them don’t have call bells.”
Crammed behind doors and with no space for visitors, the SHR commits all hallway medicine type beds will be gone by June 5. That includes closing two spaces at St. Paul’s Hospital, one at City Hospital, one at Irene & Leslie Dube Mental Health Centre, and 16 at Royal University Hospital.
At the peak of capacity last winter, there were 119 patients more than Saskatoon hospitals could handle. Although these 20 beds helped, integrated health service vice-president, Corey Miller, said the focus has shifted.
“Moving clients that don’t need hospital beds into community programs and community beds and that’s what my team is working towards,” said Miller.
“We talk about transitional care, it’s really about going home, home to a home-care setting as much as we can with our patients,” explained the region’s Sandra Blevins.
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This means discharging appropriate patients sooner and supporting them with wrap around services at home. The change in focus means more money will be directed from acute patient care, to home care instead.
“That hiring is taking place, the program is being ramped up,” said Blevins.
The budget increase has yet to be approved for the 2015-16 fiscal year.
The changes are all part of a 90 day challenge, launched to deal with capacity issues and emergency room wait times. Other changes already implemented include additional support at the Lighthouse to reduce emergency room visits and repatriation work to improve transfers for patients to their home hospitals.
On an average day in 2014, there was a surplus of 62 patients in SHR hospitals.
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