Minister of Health comments on Fort St. John Hospital emergency department closure

May 6, 2024admin

Minister of Health comments on Fort St. John Hospital emergency department closure

Adrian Dix in 2024. (Adrian Dix, Facebook)

FORT ST. JOHN, B.C. — Minister of Health Adrian Dix says emergency room closures like the one impacting the Fort St. John Hospital Thursday are often a result of one or two people not being able to come into work.

Northern Beat founder Fran Yanor asked Dix questions for Energeticcity during an interview Thursday afternoon. The interview comes after Fort St. John’s hospital closed its emergency department from 9:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. on May 2nd due to “challenges with physician coverage.”

“I think what happens on individual days is we are dependent from time to time on one or two people,” Dix said.

“When we don’t have a standard, we can’t keep the emergency room open, and that’s what happened [Wednesday, May 1st]. In Fort St. John, it happened very late in the process. People called in and were unable to come work, which is absolutely legitimate, but we had to take that decision, and Northern Health had to take that decision, as a result.”

Dix said one initiative the province is using to try to stop closures caused by limited staffing is employing teams of “locums,” doctors and nurses who can fill in for others at a regional level.

A locum is a person who temporarily fulfills the duty of another.

In a statement provided to Energeticcity, Northern Health said locum workers are part of its strategy to improve overall staffing.

“In Fort St. John, we are continuing to aggressively recruit among local and locum physicians and have recently identified additional local physicians with an interest in potentially providing emergency department coverage,” the health authority said.

“Work is ongoing to refine incentives and other supports to make emergency department coverage more attractive to both local medical staff and available locum

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Health Information

April 28, 2024admin

You’ve been notified by a hospital that your information was stolen. Now what?

When Nicole Wilson first saw a letter in the mail from Windsor Regional Hospital telling her that her personal information has likely been exposed, she says she “panicked.”

“I called my husband right away and was like, ‘oh my God, so what do I do now?’ said Wilson.

“How do I find out if my information is at risk and what’s at risk?”

Wilson is one of 326,000 patients whose information was stolen during a cyberattack incident last year. She and many others have started receiving letters from one (or more) of five southwestern Ontario hospitals impacted, notifying them that their information was likely leaked on the dark web.

“I still have questions because it doesn’t really give any information in the letter,” said Wilson, adding she wants to know the exact information that could have been exposed.

A woman sits, wearing a blue sweater, looking at the camera. — Nicole Wilson, 48, says she got a letter this month telling her her information was impacted. She’s worried about what this means and what to do next. (Jennifer La Grassa/CBC)

Why am I getting this letter?

On Oct. 23, IT provider TransForm Shared Services — which supports Windsor Regional Hospital, Hôtel-Dieu Grace Healthcare, Erie Shores HealthCare, Chatham-Kent Health Alliance and Bluewater Health in Sarnia — experienced a ransomware attack.

Computer systems at all of the hospitals were offline for several weeks, as hackers took control and stole personal patient and employee information. The attackers attempted to get the hospitals to pay a ransom, but the hospitals said they refused to pay.

Since then, the hospitals have worked on restoring their software and, earlier this month, said they would start notifying people whose information was likely impacted.

But for many, there’s concern about what this means and uncertainty on what to do next.

Why did it take so long for me to get

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Health Care

April 16, 2024admin

$1.3B contract for new hospital that will improve health care in Mississauga and Toronto

New Gilgan hospital in Etobicoke and Mississauga.

A largest-in-Canada, $1.3-billion contract has been awarded to build a new hospital on the Etobicoke-Mississauga border that’s expected to significantly improve health care for people in both cities when it opens in five years.

Mississauga-based EllisDon will build the new Gilgan Family Queensway Health Centre in Etobicoke, Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced today.

Ford said the $1.3-billion contract represents Canada’s largest health infrastructure renewal project, which is being funded largely by the province via Infrastructure Ontario.

Work began this past February and the new hospital, which is part of the Trillium Health Partners health-care network that also includes Mississauga and Credit Valley hospitals, is expected to open in late 2029, officials said.

The new hospital will serve the rapidly growing needs of fast-growing communities, now and in the future, Ford noted, saying it’s “a critical step in making care more connected and convenient in Etobicoke and neighbouring communities.”

When completed, the 600,000-sq.-ft. Gilgan Family Queensway Health Centre will include a new patient tower described as a modern nine-story facility with more than 350 beds and fully private patient rooms to ensure privacy and enhance infection prevention control.

“The expanded space will also allow THP to connect more people to specialized care, including complex continuing care and rehabilitation services,” the province’s deputy health minister, Sylvia Jones, said in a news release.

“With this new hospital expansion, our government is ensuring the needs of Peel Region and Etobicoke will be met for decades to come.”

THP president and CEO Karli Farrow described the undertaking as an “historic project” that will serve the community for many generations to come.

“Once completed, the Gilgan Family Queensway Health Centre will…allow us to increase our hospital’s capacity to provide quality health care from Milton to Toronto,” she said. “This milestone

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Health Care

April 4, 2024admin

My trip to a Winnipeg hospital turned into a medical ‘gong show’

This First Person column is the experience of Winnipegger Jo Davies. For more information about CBC’s First Person stories, please see the FAQ.

You know things are going off the rails with Manitoba’s health care when it feels like the average emergency room wait time equals a round of golf.

I experienced such a wait after I woke up one day last month with arms in so much pain, I was screaming. The walk-in clinic doctor I saw sent me to Victoria Hospital urgent care.

Six hours later, no one had taken my temperature, let alone given me any diagnostic tests. In all, I waited for 38½ hours there. (These sort of wait times aren’t unheard of in Manitoba. In January, the Manitoba Nurses Union said some ER wait times exceeded 30 hours.)

For nearly two days I didn’t eat, because no one could decide if I would be getting emergency shoulder surgery or not. The one doctor I managed to corral told me the X-rays they’d taken of my shoulders had been sent to Health Sciences Centre’s orthopedic team, and revealed fractures that only a seizure could have caused.

To be clear: I’d never had a seizure. I had, however, reluctantly started taking a specific medication at the insistence of my family doctor. It wasn’t until later that I discovered one of its side-effects, although rare, was seizures. Lucky me.

A woman with long blond hair stares into the camera. — Davies says ‘devoted yet overburdened’ nurses did their best to provide care. ‘How they keep working in these conditions is a mystery,’ she says. (Submitted by Jo Davies)

I was then packed into an ambulance to HSC with what turned out to be two broken shoulders and a dislocated left arm — all of it, according to the doctors, caused by seizures.

If you’ve ever wanted to experience

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Health Care

March 23, 2024admin

‘Always noise’: B.C. senior spends 9 days in hospital hallway due to overcrowding

A Vancouver Island senior says no one else should have to endure what he went through recently at Victoria General Hospital.

Eric Roberts, 87, spent nine days in the hospital hallway after he was admitted on Feb. 24 for an infection.

There were no rooms available so Roberts was left in the hallway, where the lights were on and people were moving around 24 hours a day.

“After about three days, they moved me in the hallway because somebody needed to be closer to the washroom, Roberts told Global News.

“And then I ended up right next to the nurses’ station. And that was a busy, busy time.”

He ended up being in the hallway for nine days in total.

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“After eight days, they said, ‘We’ve got a room for you,’” Roberts said.

“And I got a room by the window, and friends started to visit, and the next morning (they said), ‘I’m sorry, but there’s somebody deserves this more than you do.’ And back in the hall. And the only thing they could say is, ‘Well, you’re closer to the exit,’ but there was always noise, and you don’t care who’s looking at you after a while, because, I mean, you just want out and there’s no TV there, so you’d better have yourself a tablet or something.”

Click to play video: 'Prince Rupert family’s health care nightmare'

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Prince Rupert family’s health care nightmare

Eric Roberts spent nine days in the hallway of Victoria General Hospital. Here is a photo of him beside one of the paintings hanging in the hallway.

Submitted to Global News

Eric Roberts’ bed in the hallway at Victoria General Hospital.

Submitted to Global News

Roberts said the nurses were lovely to him and constantly apologizing but one day he had to move his food tray seven times to allow

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Health Care

March 22, 2024admin

87-year-old patient spends 9 days in B.C. hospital hallway

Eric Roberts is back in his Saanich home, creating the pottery he loves, after an ordeal at Victoria General Hospital a couple weeks ago in which he spent nine days in the hallway getting treated for delirium and other complications from infections.

“It’s hard work keeping yourself thinking properly because you just want out and you wonder why you’re in a hallway,” said Roberts Thursday.

The 87-year-old eventually got assigned a room for half a day, but overcrowding meant he was turfed back into the hallway for most of his stay.

“There was always noise, and you don’t care who’s looking at you after a while, because you just want out,” he said.

Island Health said it couldn’t comment on the specifics of this case, but acknowledged that there are capacity issues at hospitals across the province, and sometimes patients in the region are treated in hallways, something the health authority apologized for.

Premier David Eby weighed in on Roberts’ experience.

“It doesn’t meet the standard of care of any British Columbian in terms of the standard of care you should get in this province. Our health-care system is under significant strain,” Eby said at an unrelated news conference Thursday.

“I am really disappointed that this gentleman had to go through this experience.”

The health authority said Victoria General Hospital has been technically at 104-per-cent capacity this year, and it says part of the problem is that nearly 12 per cent of the patients there earlier this month no longer needed hospital care, but didn’t have adequate supports elsewhere to leave. That includes seniors needing home supports or waiting for a spot at a long-term care home.

B.C.’s new seniors advocate Dan Levitt noted baby boomers will soon be in

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Health Information

March 17, 2024admin

The Ottawa Hospital and YouTube Health partner to increase access to health information in Canada

Through evidence-based videos in English and French, this partnership aims to make health information more available for everyone.

In an effort to increase access to local health resources and information, The Ottawa Hospital (TOH) and YouTube Health have partnered to deliver quality health information to Canadians. Through videos in both English and French, TOH will develop critical information that Canadians need on a variety of common health conditions, including the common cold, HIV, infertility and meningitis.

“There is a need to make health information — especially in French — more accessible and readily available to folks in the community,” said Melanie Gruer, Chief Communications Officer at The Ottawa Hospital. “Partnering with YouTube Health allows our medical experts to connect with viewers and share information about common health conditions through a platform they are already familiar with.”

YouTube currently reaches 98 per cent of Canadians ages 18 years and older. This partnership will help ensure that local YouTube viewers have access to accurate and high-quality health information. Other conditions that will be covered in these videos include Alzheimer’s disease, appendicitis, fatty liver disease, myocarditis, anemia, coronary artery disease and many more.

“Our focus at YouTube Health is to make high-quality health information accessible to all Canadians,” said Soneeka Patel, YouTube Canada’s Health Lead. “Through our partnership with The Ottawa Hospital, one of the largest hospitals in Canada, we’ll be able to leverage the scale of YouTube to connect Canadians with health information that is both evidence-based and culturally relevant.”

The Ottawa Hospital is always focused on improving access to health resources. The partnership with YouTube Health is

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Health Information

February 25, 2024admin

Respiratory illness spiked kids’ hospital admissions: report

Last winter, parents and health-care workers across Canada sounded the alarm over an apparent increase in the number of children hospitalized with respiratory infections.

While parents said they were struggling to treat their children’s symptoms amid shortages of over-the-counter cough and cold medicine, doctors warned that pediatric admissions for respiratory illness were pushing hospitals to their limits.

Now, a report from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) bears out those stories with new data that shows hospitals did, in fact, see a significant increase in the number of stays due to respiratory illnesses among pediatric patients during the 2022-23 fiscal year.

In fact, CIHI’s data shows hospitalizations for seasonal flu among children four and under spiked by 7,306 per cent, increasing to 2,444 cases in 2022-23 from only 33 cases the previous year. The federal fiscal year in Canada begins on April 1 and ends on March 31 the following year.

“Last year was unprecedented for all pediatric hospitals in this country and highlighted key gaps in our system,” Dr. Lindy Samson, chief of staff and chief medical officer at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO), stated in a media release.

“We know from experience that viral seasons will continue to affect our young patients, and this is why it is so important that we invest in our pediatric health system and adopt public health measures to help reduce the risks.”

Some health-care professionals attributed the spike in respiratory infections last year to the fact that physical distancing and public health restrictions during the pandemic kept most children from being infected with viruses like RSV and influenza for two years. Once those restrictions eased, the viruses began to circulate again, and some children whose bodies were inexperienced fighting them became very

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Department Health

February 5, 2024admin

Mental health, substance-use zone now open at Peace Arch Hospital

A new, dedicated mental-health and substance-use treatment area within the expanded Peace Arch Hospital emergency department is now fully open, supporting people presenting to hospital with a quiet and calming environment to receive care.

“The White Rock and South Surrey community is growing rapidly, bringing an increased demand for health-care services,” said Adrian Dix, Minister of Health. “That’s why our government invested in redeveloping a number of areas at Peace Arch Hospital to better support staff and the needs of patients. I want to thank Fraser Health for their tireless recruitment efforts and the Peace Arch Hospital Foundation for their remarkable fundraising efforts.”

Following completion in January 2022, the expanded emergency department supported 58,207 patients between April 1, 2022, and March 31, 2023, up 10.3% from the same period in the previous year. The expanded emergency department features 50 new single-patient treatment spaces, effectively doubling the capacity. The department also includes a pediatric-friendly space.

“People struggling with a mental-health or addiction crisis can be really vulnerable and often need a quiet, safe place for treatment,” said Jennifer Whiteside, Minister of Mental Health and Addictions. “Delivering these services in a dedicated, patient-centred space at Peace Arch Hospital will be critical moving forward for people seeking emergency care in White Rock and South Surrey.”

A new surgical suite above the emergency department opened in January 2022. The surgical suite features two more operating rooms, increasing the total from three to five.

In addition, a surgical daycare project opened in April 2023, which included more patient bays, up to 12 from eight, and converted an existing operating room into a cataract surgery procedure room. Between April 1, 2022, and March 31, 2023, Fraser Health was able to complete 33% more surgeries at Peace Arch Hospital than in the same period in the previous

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Department Health

February 4, 2024admin

Mental health, substance-use zone opens at Peace Arch Hospital emergency department – BC

The new mental health and substance-use treatment area is now open at the Peach Arch Hospital.

The facility is part of the expanded emergency department.

B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix said it is an important facility for the area, as more services are needed for a growing population.

“The White Rock and South Surrey community is growing rapidly, bringing an increased demand for health-care services,” said Adrian Dix in a press release. “That’s why our government invested in redeveloping a number of areas at Peace Arch Hospital to better support staff and the needs of patients.”

Surrey-White Rock MLA Trevor Halford was at the hospital for the opening on Saturday.

“Representing White Rock here, I can tell you that the homeless, the mental health situation, has never been worse,” he said. “People need services, they needed them two years ago when this building was constructed (and) was able to treat people, but the fact that this minister didn’t make it a priority and the fact that he is here today to take a victory lap when (the government) is two years late is absolutely embarrassing.”

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Click to play video: 'Experts urge expansion of ‘safe supply’ to save lives'

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Experts urge expansion of ‘safe supply’ to save lives

The expanded emergency department opened in January 2022 and supported more than 58,000 patients between April 2022 and March 2023, which was a 10 percent increase from the same period in the year before.

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The expanded emergency department features 50 new single-patient treatment spaces, doubling its capacity. The department also includes a pediatric-friendly space.

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Why am I getting this letter?

Why did it take so long for me to get