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Windsor-Essex hospital officials applaud province’s 'Plan to Stay Open'

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Windsor-Essex hospital officials are pleased with the proposed legislative tools to help boost hospital capacity, as work is already underway to help ease the local crisis.

“There's no magic wand you can wave that's going to magically fix the issues we're facing,” said Windsor Regional Hospital CEO David Musyj during a media briefing Thursday morning.

But Musyj said the announcement, made by health minister Sylvia Jones, combined with efforts already underway can make a difference to increase bed capacity.

The key announcement, according to Musyj, was the provision to get long-term-care bound patients out of acute beds into the appropriate space.

Between both campuses, Windsor Regional has 31 patients who have been cleared by their physician to leave hospital but are still waiting for their preferred long-term care spot to open up.

“Combined, these patients have waited in an acute care bed for 840 days,” said Musyj.

Meantime, he told reporters 19 people in the emergency department are waiting for an acute care bed to come free, leading to the longest emergency department wait times in the province at 4.4 hours on average.

“That's what the government is saying is what's going to help with emergency department wait times is you got to get the flow going,” said Musyj.

Staffing is not ‘the big issue’ like in other jurisdictions, with 400 more clinical front-line staff currently working at the two hospitals than before the pandemic. That represents about 10 per cent more staff than the start of 2020.

But Musyj didn’t mince words when speaking about hospital employees: “Our staff are freaking tired.”

To give staff a break and mitigate looming staffing pressures, the hospital has taken a number of steps, including:

  • -Offering signing and retention bonuses
  • -Hiring hundreds of upper-year nursing students
  • -Recruiting internationally educated nursing staff
  • -Make part time jobs into full time jobs
  • -Eliminating temporary jobs and making them permanent

“We're doing everything in our power and then some to try to address what's facing us,” the CEO said, adding the real key component he will look for more details about is provincial funding for more beds.

Since the pandemic began the hospital has added 60 acute care beds. Musyj says 18 of those remain unfunded and the hospital is eating those extra costs.

“We cannot afford to close these beds. However, we also cannot afford financially to keep them open either,” Musyj said. “I'm confident this will be resolved shortly as a result of today's announcements”

In a statement to CTV News Erie Shores Health Care CEO Kristin Kennedy said she’s pleased the government is working to address capacity issues.

“The current situation is not sustainable, and changes need to be made to ensure people continue to have timely access to care, Kennedy said. “I, along with our Senior Leadership Team, will sit down in the coming days and evaluate the impact the initiatives announced today will have on our operations. We hope today’s announcement will allow greater patient flow and limit the number of patients waiting in the Emergency Department for a bed to become available.”

A spokesperson for the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance echoed those sentiments.

“Similar to other hospitals, we continue to experience health human resource challenges and capacity issues at CKHA including a number of patients who are waiting for an alternate level of care and patients presenting with higher levels of acuity in our Emergency Department. The current situation is not sustainable,” the statement reads. “CKHA is optimistic and will be assessing this plan once we have more details to determine how it will help us to improve access to care for our community and to recruit and retain dedicated staff and physicians.

“We look forward to working with our partners and provincial counterparts as we strive to improve care for our patients, their families and our community."

BY THE NUMBERS

As mentioned, Windsor Regional Hospital CEO David Musyj said the hospital is taking a number of steps to address worker burnout and stave off any looming staffing crunch.

Here’s what they’re doing and how many people have been hired as a result:

  • -Taking advantage of all government supported programs for signing bonuses for staff. 39 clinical staff have been hired in total. 27 of those are working in critical care (two from out of province) plus 12 in general nursing.
  • -Hiring new grads. The hospital has offered up to 20 signing bonuses through a government program.
  • -Hiring third and fourth-year nursing students. Since the start of Covid-19, WRH has hired 483 students and will shortly increase the total complement from 154 to 300 nursing students working across both campuses. Since 2019, 106 of these third and fourth-year nurses upon graduation were hired into nursing positions.
  • -The recruitment of internationally educated nursing (IEN) staff. Since early 2022, WRH has been able to start the training of seven IEN, with four more scheduled to start training in September. Three have been hired permanently and discussions are ongoing with 33 candidates to start their training.
  • -Collapse part-time clinical jobs into full-time jobs as much as possible. This has resulted in the creation of 24 full-time jobs.
  • -Eliminate temporary jobs and make them permanent as much as possible. When staff are off on leaves (medical, parental), the hospital typically hires back-fill stand on a temporary basis. The hospital is now considering those postings to be permanent positions. The incumbent’s job is still protected upon return.

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