Our New Hospital

I have to admit that I have not written very much about the new hospital that is supposed to be built in Windsor that will provide the medical service for our entire area. As I understand it, the 2 other hospitals that we have now will somehow be transformed or even shut down. The new hospital will in effect be our only one.

I must tell you, dear reader, that I have not followed this matter all that closely. I just assumed from early on that we would be getting this new hospital in our area and that there is no real point in debating it. I must admit that I did not particularly care for where it was going to be built because I felt the location was a silly one. However, it was not all that far from where I am living now in Tecumseh. It just seemed to me to be a rather strange location near the airport but I assumed that, given its role, this was supposed to be a good central location for the City of Windsor and all of the small towns in the area.

To be blunt about it, I think it's time to take a hard look at the project to decide whether it should be built at all now or not. If it should be stopped, what should be done to replace it? Does it make sense in other words to have one major hospital only for our entire area? I could understand that if our population in the whole area was declining but I assume that it will be getting even bigger in the future.

Here is the status that we have today as disclosed in a Windsor Regional Hospital memo:

"Windsor Regional Hospital is one of the largest hospitals in the Province of Ontario, serving a population of 400,000 people in Windsor and Essex County. It is the regional provider of advanced care in areas that include Complex Trauma, Renal Dialysis, Cardiac Care, Stroke and Neurosurgery, Intensive Care, Acute Mental Health, Family Birthing Centre, Neonatal Intensive Care, Paediatric Services, Regional Cancer services and a broad range of medical and surgical services required to support these specialized areas.

Through a major initiative involving the two hospitals in Windsor, a realignment of programs and services was achieved on October 1, 2013, when Windsor Regional Hospital became responsible for the governance, management and operations of the Ouellette Campus along with continuing its responsibility for the Metropolitan Campus. The ultimate vision is to design and construct a new state-of-the-art acute hospital healthcare facility serving the needs of Windsor-Essex for generations to come.

Providing Acute Care Services with 483 plus beds and an operating budget of half of a billion dollars, Windsor Regional Hospital is one of the largest community based non-academic hospitals in the Province of Ontario."

Here is what the future is supposed to be. It will be a new hospital located near the airport:

"The 1.6-million square foot, state-of-the-art building will stand 10 storeys tall. It is expected to have 500 beds when it opens…

Gary Switzer, the CEO of the Erie St. Clair Local Health Integration Network, said the mega-hospital will serve as Windsor's acute care centre, where residents will go for complex regional trauma and emergency needs, as well as for regional cardiac and cancer care. 

Critical care, neurosurgery, neo-natal intensive care, obstetrics and pediatrics will also be offered at the new hospital, along with in-patient medical and surgical units and acute specialty clinics.

"Windsor Regional Hospital will be responsible for all these services at the new hospital," said Switzer during a media event on Thursday in which the plans for the hospital and regional health-care were laid out.

Switzer said that Hotel Dieu-Grace Healthcare (HDGH) will continue to deliver non-acute care services. He said that organization will be responsible for many mental-health services, complex continuing care, dialysis, rehabilitation and some outpatient clinics." (CBC News, July 16, 2015) 

I just don't understand this at all. I really have difficulty understanding why our new hospital for this entire area should only have room for 500 patients. I would have thought that our population should be increasing rather than remaining fixed at the number it is now. Wouldn't that require more hospital beds?  I also assume that our population will have a lot more elderly people living here for a longer time. Wouldn't that require more hospital beds for those who will be requiring additional medical assistance as they grow older? I just found the number 500 surprisingly small given what the hospital numbers are now.

Let me just outline a number of stories that I have seen over the last number of months that says to me that what is being proposed for our new hospital to cover the entire area makes little sense to me. Here are some of them:

"At least four surgeries were cancelled Thursday and front-line staff Windsor Regional Hospital are starting to feel the strain of overcrowding as a bed shortage continues, said the hospital's CEO.

Thirty-four patients were without beds Thursday morning, said David Musyj.

 

"We have physicians taking care of approximately 40 additional patients than they're usually used to taking care of," he explained. "When you have to run at that 110 or 120 per cent for three weeks running it puts a real strain on the system and a real strain on staff."

Musyj held a press conference Wednesday where he highlighted a "critical" shortage of beds caused by a spike in acutely ill patients at the beginning of 2017." (CBC News, January 19, 2017) 

I must admit, given this comment by Mr. Musyj, that I do not understand how he could be in favour of a hospital that only has 500 beds.

Here is another story with more surgeries being cancelled and significant overcapacity:

"Windsor Regional Hospital will definitely be cancelling more surgeries on Tuesday as it continues to cope with a surge of patients.

On Monday, it had 46 more patients than it had beds for at its two sites. Its Met campus was at 109 per cent capacity and its Ouellette campus was at 102 per cent.

“At an acute hospital, we don’t have the ability to shut the doors,” CEO David Musyj said, describing how the overcapacity problem that resulted in eight cancelled surgeries last week, appeared to get better but ramped up on Monday.

“We’ll be cancelling surgery for sure tomorrow,” he said." (Brian Cross, Windsor Star, January 23, 2017) 

The cost of this overcapacity is quite large as well:

"Windsor Regional Hospital’s tab to run overcapacity for the last 53 days of flu season is at $1.5 million and growing…

At a cost of $877 per bed, per day, the overcapacity works out to an extra $28,053 per day, $196,374 per week and $1.5 million over the 53 days, Musyj said. He said the health ministry has asked the hospital to keep track of the extra costs — a hopeful sign it will pay for them.

But in the meantime, surgeries are being cancelled to cope with the overflows, meaning people who’ve waited months and sometimes more than a year for a surgery, are learning they’ll have to wait even longer, said MPP Lisa Gretzky (NDP—Windsor West), who has asked to meet with Health Minister Eric Hoskins as soon as possible to talk about the challenges at Windsor Regional.

Very sick patients admitted to the hospital may not be getting the attention they need, she said, because staff have so many patients to deal with. The situation is worsened by the fact the hospital laid off RNs last year, she said." (Brian Cross, Windsor Star, January 25, 2017) 

What in fact is troubling as you can see from above is that people can get even more sick because they cannot be treated the way they were supposed to be.

Here is another story that is looking at this for overcapacity differently. It shows that we have some real medical issues not just flu related:

"Patient surge at hospital: Is it a sign of a health care grey tsunami?

The three-month-long patient surge at Windsor Regional Hospital is less about a nasty strain of the flu and more about swelling numbers of elderly patients hospitalized for various causes, according to a new analysis.

It has experts wondering if the surge is a forerunner of future health-care chaos as a grey tsunami hits the beach." (Brian Cross, Windsor Star, March 5, 2017)

What is happening in reality is significantly different. I believe this will have an impact on what size hospital we need and where it should be located:

"he said the majority of admissions to the hospital are frail seniors with a variety of diagnoses, who are acutely sick.

“Because of their frailty they are more acute, staying longer in the hospital,” he said. “Those longer lengths of stay is what is creating a bit of a crunch.”

He said the surge is perhaps a sign of things to come, as the number of local people aged 75 and over increases by 16.5 per cent between 2015 and 2020, and a whopping 108.6 per cent by 2035…

Traditionally, it was thought these surges in winter were caused by the flu, said LHIN chairman Martin Girash, a former Windsor Regional CEO. “Now we’re starting to see a different pattern."

Here is why what was put forward back in 2015, about new hospital makes no sense anymore. And why it may not have made sense 2 years ago:

"A bad season coupled with the elderly population, the percentage of them, it’s inevitable we’re going to be facing more of these in the future. It’s going to be more common than what we have now,” Musyj said, adding that planning for the new acute hospital proposed to replace Windsor Regional’s two existing campuses, is taking into account the aging population. He’s hoping it will be built so it can expand to more than 700 beds from the current 550."

Here is what is being done today for our next winter season as an emergency setting not only for the Windsor area but for the rest of the Province as well:

"Health Minister Dr. Eric Hoskins announced Monday the government is committing $140-million to pay for more than 2,000 additional hospital bed spaces to accommodate an overflow of patients for the upcoming flu season." (CTV Windsor, October 23, 2017)

To be direct about it, as far as I am concerned, when one considers the medical situation is changing so dramatically in this entire Province, and not just the Windsor area, there is a need to consider whether or not we should be tearing down our hospitals and just building new one with 500 beds.

Perhaps what we may want to consider is building this new hospital but also keeping the other 2 hospitals built up and working to meet the needs of people in our local areas as well.