The President and Chief Executive Officer of Hôtel-Dieu Grace Healthcare says the ongoing Code Blacks in Essex County are having a dangerous ripple effect on the provision of care being offered in the region.
Numerous instances of Code Blacks over the past few weeks have led to calls from the unions, officials and mayors to do something about what's happening.
A Code Black is used when there are no ambulances available to respond to emergency calls because paramedics are waiting at a hospital to offload the patient.
Bill Marra says their role at the HDGH Specialty Hospital on Prince Road is really to facilitate as much patient flow as possible, because they have longer lengths of stay due to things like complex medical needs or rehab.
"And so our relationships with our acute care partners is very, very key around that. We move anywhere between 150 to 200 patients per month, and that helps support the acute care system especially during the Code Blacks," he said.
He says teams from throughout the acute care system in Windsor-Essex are in constant communication about moving patients.
"Because you have to be careful to not compromise the care. You want to be able to discharge a patient when they're ready to be discharged with proper supports. So it's a real tricky balance to insure that the quality of care is completed, their healthcare journey is completed in a hospital, and you want to get them home while we're also pulling from the acute care system."
Exacerbating the issue is the ongoing staffing issues in the sector, which is effecting HDGH as well.
During Wednesday's Board of Directors meeting, Marra discussed Health and Human Resources being one of their key priorities this year as recruitment remains a challenge, there are some shifts not being filled, and sick time continues to be a challenge as well.
He says it's a difficult environment to be in when you have a distressed work force that's coming out of a challenging three year environment due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
"There is a shortage of front line clinicians, we've augmented it to some extent, so one of our strategies for example has been to introduce personal support workers into the hospital. PSWs, we've hired about 40 of them to work in support of our nurses, so that you can augment your nursing staff with PSWs and so far that's gone well," Marra said.
Adding more PSWs to their mental health unit and rehab units is something Marra says they are looking at doing as well.
Also mentioned during Marra's report is that HDGH continues to be at or near full capacity every day. He explained they're managing well under the circumstances, but clearly there's work to be done.
Marra says it's really going to be a long game, where the issues won't be resolved overnight.
Specific to the Code Blacks, Marra adds that on a daily basis they're doing whatever they can on their end to support the acute care hospitals around decanting or temporarily relocating patients when they're ready.