Hundreds of patients spend days every week getting specialized dialysis treatment at Seven Oaks Hospital. But now patients and their families are raising concerns over the province closing the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit.
RELATED: ‘Doing nothing was not an option’: 3 Winnipeg emergency rooms closing down
“Something could happen at any time and if they don’t have immediate (access to) an emergency room they could die,” Genevieve LeClerc said. “To get them all the way to an emergency centre they could be gone.”
Leclerc’s husband gets dialysis three days a week and during one of his treatments needed to be revived after he nearly choked to death.
“They had to take him to emergency,” LeClerc said. “He was in the hospital for seven weeks after that.”
Seven Oaks Hospital is home to one of the largest dialysis units in the country and provides lifesaving treatment to hundreds of kidney patients.
RELATED: ‘We’re very concerned’: Health care workers in Manitoba shocked with changes to health care system
But these patients are often at greater risk of having major health complications.
“They deal with people that are critically and chronically ill,” CUPE Manitoba Health Care Coordinator Shannon McAteer said. “Dialysis is a lifesaving treatment that individuals get. They often have a lot of other health problems because their kidneys aren’t working properly. They are at a higher risk of illnesses and a lot of patients end up in the ICU.”
McAteer said losing that ICU could have dire and devastating effects.
RELATED: Nurses rally against health-care cuts, hundreds gather at Manitoba legislature
“If someone has a situation, or a code, and something becomes life-threatening… in a normal situation, they would be transferred to the ICU until they’re stable,” McAteer said.
“Now what’s going to happen?”
The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority said that will depend on the severity of the illness.
In an email statement a WRHA spokesperson said:
They may be seen, and treated, in the urgent care centre on site at Seven Oaks, or, if they need intensive care, they would be transferred to an ICU at another site. We do anticipate, some may need admission directly to hospital and some of those admissions may take place directly into the complex continuing care beds at seven oaks depending on the level of need.
But transferring patients to a different hospital that will be able to provide the same treatment the ICU at Seven Oaks Hospital currently does, requires patients to be sent by ambulance.
RELATED: Fewer emergency rooms on the way for Winnipeg
That alone raises another issue the union doesn’t believe has been addressed.
“I haven’t seen any mention of increasing ambulances,” McAteer said.
“When someone is in a critical situation they can’t go by stretcher or be driven in a loved ones car. They need to go in an ambulance.”
Another issue both the union and patients feel has left more questions than answers from the province.
- ‘Shock and disbelief’ after Manitoba school trustee’s Indigenous comments
- ‘Super lice’ are becoming more resistant to chemical shampoos. What to use instead
- Is home ownership only for the rich now? 80% say yes in new poll
- Invasive strep: ‘Don’t wait’ to seek care, N.S. woman warns on long road to recovery
Comments