With Barrie’s hospital running far over capacity for months, Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre (RVH) president and CEO Janice Skot says millions of dollars in new provincial funding will go a long way toward alleviating those pressures.
“For over a year now, RVH has been over 120 per cent occupancy,” Skot said. “That means every day, there are at least three patients in every hallway of our adult units.
“These pressures have been ongoing,” she added. “Sometimes we used to peak at Christmastime, for example, would be a busy season, but we’ve been busy for 14 to 16 months now at 120 per cent occupancy.”
On Friday, Barrie MPP Ann Hoggarth announced $6.25 million in funding through this year’s provincial budget to help RVH as well as other hospitals in the region, including Waypoint Centre for Mental Health Care ($2.51 million), Georgian Bay General Hospital ($1.58 million), Orillia Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital ($1.25 million), Collingwood General and Marine Hospital ($1.02 million) and Muskoka Algonquin Healthcare ($750,000).
Hoggarth said she has heard the message loud and clear from hospital officials.
“From growth to an aging population, we listened to what the hospitals had to say and all of the people using the system,” she said. “Now is the time to make that extra investment. We’re thrilled to do it and it’s the right thing to do.”
With a $345-million annual budget, it costs approximately $1 million a day to run RVH.
With a provincial election in June and specifics of the provincial budget to be unveiled March 28, Skot said she has no qualms about whether the money will arrive.
“There are absolutely no concerns,” she said. “If Barrie MPP Ann Hoggarth says the money is coming, I absolutely trust that it is.”
The $13.3 million in area funding is part of a provincial investment of $822 million for Ontario hospitals and represents an overall increase of 4.6 per cent over last year’s 3.2 per cent.
Hoggarth said the funding for the Barrie hospital will help provide better access to care, reduce wait times, address capacity issues and help meet the needs of Simcoe County’s changing population.
RVH opened a 36-bed transitional care unit in December which soon increased to 40 beds to accommodate “surge volumes,” followed by a new child and youth mental-health program with eight inpatient beds for those in crisis. There are also plans to open a south-end hospital campus.
“With opportunity and growth comes challenges,” Skot said, adding this year the hospital reached “unprecedented volume pressures.”
That includes 5,000 more patients than a year ago, including almost 800 new cancer patients, while the emergency department cared for almost 85,000 patients in the last 12 months.
“Never before has there been so many ill people that need our care,” Skot said.
Skot said overcrowding doesn’t just affect patients and their families, but also people working in the hospital.
“When you’re a nurse working 12-hour shifts, every day you come into not just a full unit, but a unit with three-plus patients,” Skot said. “It is incredibly exhausting to do that for 14 months. It has been very hard on people.”
Skot said it can be hard for health-care provider to try and explain why there is a wait for a bed.
“We’re never having a valley; it’s always just a peak.”
The Simcoe County Hospital Alliance is also slated to make a funding announcement for area hospitals next Tuesday at the county administration building in Midhurst.
