Wait times are dropping for rehabilitative care in Windsor.
Two years ago, the wait was six days now it has been cut in half to three.
But Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare isn't finished yet. Officials are projecting a wait of just one day, now that they are opening a brand new unit for rehab patients.
When Windsor hospitals realigned two years ago, with Hotel-Dieu taking over post-acute care, officials say they looked very closely at what this community needed.
They realized with an aging population, there wasn't enough care for rehab, getting patients from hospital and back home sooner.
They spent 75,000 renovating a wing of what used to be Malden Park long-term care home and transformed it in just five weeks into a brand new 30-bed rehab unit.
“There's always someone here to help you, no matter what,” says patient Gloria Pillon.
Pillon broke her hip six weeks ago. She's one of the first patients to use the brand new rehab unit at Hotel-Dieu.
“I was asked if I wouldn't mind to come over here, because they were opening 30 new beds,” say Pillon. “I jumped at the chance.”
Terra Cadeau, director of strategic planning, says this allows them to go from a 60-bed unit to a 90-bed unit.
But Cadeau says it’s not just about opening new beds. This unit is for geriatric patients. The people in each unit have similar problems.
“It allows the patients to work together, to form a community of sorts, so hip fracture patients will share their journey, and hopefully encourage one another on that pathway to get home,” says Janice Kaffer, Hotel-Dieu CEO.
Another unit is for neurological patients, while a third helps patients with general rehab.
Staff take every opportunity to get people moving, including having them come to a dining room for all meals.
The old conference room at what used to be Malden Park home has been renovated for individualized rehab. It is all so new, some pieces of equipment still need to be assembled.
“We were able to close a 40-bed unit and take that money and convert it into this 30-bed unit,”says Marie Campagna, chief financial officer at HDGH.
Fifty-one new jobs were created by this unit and it brought Dr. Robert Biswas back home to Windsor.
“I moved about 10 years ago to complete my medical training in London,” says Dr. Biswas. “When I first heard they were thinking of creating a similar unit here, I figured it would be an awesome opportunity to jump on that.”
The length of stay in rehab is, on average, about 30 days, but even once discharged the hospital is planning to begin an outreach program.
Kaffer says staff will go out to a patients home after discharge to make sure they are still on the path to a full recovery and to uncover problems early in the hopes of keeping people at home and out of hospital.
The full details on that program won't be laid out until the spring.
