As crews install studding in the room that will house the hemodialysis unit at La Verendrye hospital here, Dr. Bill McCready revealed Tuesday that it won’t not be operational until September.
“The renovations could be done by June. But there’s no need to start up until then,” said Dr. McCready, the medical director of renal services at Thunder Bay Regional Hospital.
“If one looks at it with a bureaucratic eye, we’re looking at August or September,” he added.
Wayne Woods, CEO of Riverside Health Care Facilities Inc. here, noted they’re sticking by their June completion date but added news of the September timeframe is a “more recent development.”
“As to when its operational, I have to leave that up to them,” he said.
Dr. McCready noted the unit is considered a satellite unit of Thunder Bay Regional Hospital, and said “quality” is of vital importance before patients are treated.
“The patients need to understand we’re trying to establish efficient and safe care–there’s no room for mistakes,” he stressed. “We’re doing this as fast as can be humanly done.
“We’re not going to settle for a sub-standard dialysis unit.”
An important part of getting that quality is staffing. “The real launching step will be the hiring of the nurses–finding them and then hiring them.
“It takes three months to train a hemodialysis nurse,” Dr. McCready said.
“It’s our intention to hire local nurses but it’s a difficult balance to be able to deliver the care that patients deserve while operating apart from the unit at Thunder Bay Regional Hospital,” he added.
Hospital staff got a taste of the future after Dr. McCready visited La Verendrye last week, holding two information sessions with nurses and meeting with department managers, noted Woods.
“He outlined the expectations of the unit, and what’s going to have be done before we get going,” Woods remarked. “For instance, in our lab, there is a whole new batch of blood tests they’re going to have to do now.
“It’s going to be a learning experience,” he remarked.
Debbra Westover-Morriseau, a Barwick woman who’s spoken out for district dialysis patients, said the news was welcome.
“We’re finally getting it figured out. It wasn’t specified that June wasn’t the end of the wait. But now that it’s more explained, I’m satisfied,” she said.
Westover-Morriseau added patients’ families who had begun to make arrangements to relocate their loved ones back here in June also are relieved by the news.
Once operational, the unit will be able to service up to 24 district patients. There currently are about 20 patients Woods knows of that will be treated here.
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
