Duane Hicks
With Lake of the Woods District Hospital in Kenora announcing last month it would be making a permanent scheduling change to its ER by not having a physician on-site at night, and Dryden Regional Health Centre warning last week it may be left with no choice but to temporarily close its ER on an intermittent basis due to physician shortages, Riverside Health Care Facilities, Inc. is taking a look its own ER.
“We’re always in a tenuous situation, but we’ve been fortunate to have some locum coverage to help GPs man the emergency department,” Riverside CEO Wayne Woods said Monday.
“But for all of us up here in the north, it’s getting into a tenuous situation,” he warned.
“Except for some luck, we’ve been in the same position a couple of other times, too. We’ve come close [to having to temporarily close the ER],” Woods added. “I think communities are going to have to start looking at how they view the emergency department differently in the future.
“It’s supposed to be there for emergencies, but the offset is you can’t get into the clinic to get an appointment so you go to the emergency department.”
Woods said he currently is working with Chief of Staff Dr. Robert Algie to put together some information to get out to the community and “explain the situation a little better,” stressing the importance of what constitutes urgent care and when treatment can be deferred.
La Verendrye Hospital here has a full-service emergency department offering emergency care 24/7, with doctors responding on an on-call basis
Riverside said the general physician shortage in the community has increased visits to the emergency department, wait times may vary on any given day, and the hospital is not able to provide an estimated wait time or whether a doctor is on-site.
However, nursing staff in the ER have enhanced levels of preparation, including Basic Cardiac Life Support (BCLS), Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS), and Trauma Nursing Care Course (TNCC), while one has Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS).
CT scanner
Meanwhile, Woods said Riverside finalized an agreement with a medical service provider on Monday, and will be able to provide 24/7 CT scan coverage starting in January.
Woods clarified that CT scans currently are conducted here, but then viewed by a remote radiologist, usually in Thunder Bay. However, after-hours coverage has been difficult because there’s been no radiologist working in Thunder Bay during that time of day.
Consequently, patients needing emergency CT scans have been sent across the river to Falls Memorial Hospital.
“It’s okay if it’s a non-urgent read, but if it’s an urgent read—say someone is suspected of having a stroke—you have to do it [the CT scan] right away,” noted Woods. “That’s why we continue to send them over to the Falls.”
This will change in January, and the hospital here will be able to contact radiologists for CT scan readings 24 hours a day, seven days a week (while CT scans can be transmitted virtually anywhere in the world to be read by a
radiologist, provincial regulations dictate the radiologist has to be licensed to practice in Ontario).
Woods noted La Verendrye doesn’t warrant having a radiologist on-site because there’s not enough volume to support their activities.
Rainycrest renovations
In other news, a $3-million renovation project at Rainycrest Long-term Care Facility here got underway last month, with work expected to continue over the next nine months.
Woods said the renovations involve window replacement, upgrading the courtyard and grounds, and solving drainage issues at the property.
“Nothing too glamorous, but it’s needed,” he noted, adding crews currently are working at Rainycrest to install weeping tile and get the building to drain properly.
While it’s well-known by now that Queen’s Park is looking to make steep spending cuts to cope with an uncertain economic future and a projected deficit of about $500 million, Woods said the money for the Rainycrest project already is in hand and won’t be affected by the provincial belt-tightening.
The only other hospital-related project on the work schedule is an changeover of the phone system at La Verendrye, which currently is underway.
