Expanded ER at Misericordia Hospital to open Tuesday, tripling capacity

November 26, 2023admin

Expanded ER at Misericordia Hospital to open Tuesday, tripling capacity

UPDATE: On Nov. 20, officials with Covenant Health held a news conference and said the new emergency department at the Misericordia Hospital in Edmonton will open at 7:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2023.

After three years of construction, the new, larger emergency department at the Misericordia Community Hospital will officially open to patients later this month, promising to triple patient capacity, according to Alberta Health Services.

The Misercordia Community Hospital in Edmonton's new ER, Nov. 20, 2023. — The Misercordia Community Hospital in Edmonton’s new ER, Nov. 20, 2023.

Global News

But at least one health-care advocate questions whether the facility by itself is enough to make an impact on patient care.

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“It really depends on what that expanded capacity looks like,” said Lorian Hardcastle, an associate professor in the faculty of law at the Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary.

“We can open more beds and it’s easy to open more beds, but what can be harder are the staffing challenges associated with that.”

“We know that Alberta, the province, the country in general, is struggling with health-care worker staffing, so it will be interesting to see how easily they will be able to staff that new space,” Hardcastle said.

“We competing with other jurisdictions for health-care workers and I think it’s a challenging time for Alberta to try to recruit, given some of the significant restructuring that is going on right now.”

Click to play video: 'Misericordia Community Hospital prepares to open new emergency department'

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Misericordia Community Hospital prepares to open new emergency department

The $85-million project is expected to accommodate about 60,000 patient visits per year.

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The 5,500-square-metre facility is three times the size of the existing department and includes six ambulance bays, 64 treatment rooms, two radiology rooms, five isolation rooms, 18 acute care spaces

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Department Health

November 25, 2023admin

Weekly update on hospital capacity – November 23, 2023

Department Health

November 22, 2023admin

More than 20 patients die at Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital amid Israeli raid | Gaza News

More than 20 patients have died at Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital in the last two days as Israeli forces continue to raid the facility, according to a hospital official and the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza.

The health ministry said on Friday that 24 patients died over the past 48 hours due to power cuts at the hospital, which has been out of service since Saturday amid a fuel shortage.

“Twenty-four patients in different departments have died over the last 48 hours as vital medical equipment has stopped functioning because of the power outage,” said health ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra on Friday.

Muhammad Abu Salmiya, director of al-Shifa Hospital, told Al Jazeera that 22 patients had died overnight.

The health facility has become the focus of Israel’s ground offensive in northern Gaza, with special forces combing through the facility since Wednesday amid growing international alarm about the fate of the hundreds of patients and thousands of civilians seeking shelter there.

Israel has alleged that Hamas fighters are using a tunnel complex beneath the hospital to stage attacks. Hamas and hospital officials have repeatedly denied the claims.

Israel said its forces had found a vehicle with a large number of weapons, and an underground structure it called a Hamas tunnel shaft, after two days searching the premises.

The army also said it had found the bodies of two hostages in buildings near, though not inside, the hospital grounds.

The Palestinian health ministry said the raid has destroyed medical services in the hospital, where the UN estimated 2,300 patients, staff and displaced Palestinians were sheltering before Israeli troops moved in.

Al-Shifa staff said a premature baby died at the hospital on Friday, the first baby to die there in the two days since Israeli forces entered.

Three had died in the previous days

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Department Health

November 19, 2023admin

Sask. hospital staff call out overcrowding, unsafe conditions in the emergency department

Nursing staff at St. Paul’s Hospital in Saskatoon are calling on Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) to act on unsafe conditions in the emergency department.

CTV News obtained a letter to SHA leaders signed by 118 emergency department staff at St. Paul’s addresses overcrowding, unsafe ratios of nurses to patients and the indignity experienced by patients treated in hallways because of the lack of space.

Overcrowding leads to poorer patient outcomes, longer hospital stays and higher mortality rates, the letter says, and physicians have nowhere to properly assess people.

“We have great concerns that someday soon something bad will happen in our waiting room despite our best efforts to work in this broken system.”

With nowhere to treat new patients coming in, staff had to place people in hallway beds, “which are literally just stretchers in front of nursing desks and lined down hallways, with no safety equipment for the patients, call bells or oxygen.”

On Wednesday, the Saskatoon Fire Department said hallway beds were obstructing exit doors in the hospital, in violation of national fire code requirements.

“These deplorable conditions are leading to breaches in confidentiality, lack of dignity, and unsafe care provision due to no space with appropriate monitoring for care required,” the letter says.

“Staff report tremendous moral injury due to the conditions patients are placed in. Pad changes in the hallways while staff try hold sheets around the bed, examinations in the waiting rooms, chest pain patients with no heart monitor to observe their heart, cancer diagnoses given without privacy in the waiting room, sexual assaults with no bed to examine them or provide privacy,” staff wrote.

In an emailed statement, an SHA spokesperson told CTV News that a plan to deal with capacity pressure in Saskatoon’s hospitals

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Health Information

November 15, 2023admin

Date from every Sarnia hospital patient in last 30 years stolen

Published Nov 09, 2023 • Last updated 4 days ago • 3 minute read

Bluewater Health in Sarnia. Photo by File photo /The Observer

The records stolen in a sustained and devastating cyberattack against five southwestern Ontario hospitals includes information about every Sarnia patient in the last three decades, Bluewater Health said Thursday.

“All hospitals have some degree of patient and employee information affected,” the five affected institutions said Thursday in a joint statement. “All our hospitals are diligently investigating the stolen data to determine who is impacted. This difficult process will take time. All hospitals are committed to transparency and will provide regular updates as we learn more.”

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Health Information

November 9, 2023admin

Cybercriminal group claims responsibility for ransomware attack as hospital CEO says recovery will take weeks

Twelve days into a ransomware attack that has upended health-care services at five hospitals in southwestern Ontario, a cybercriminal group claimed responsibility in an online blog, describing how the attack happened and what it says are the millions of private patient records it has stolen.

In a report to Windsor Regional Hospital on Thursday, chief executive officer David Musyj said the hospital is slowly getting back on track, working hard to restore services. He noted although the impacted hospitals “closely examined” the ransom demand from the cybercriminals, they decided against paying it.

“We knew … that we could not trust the promise of a criminal to delete this information,” he said.

“We learned that payment would not speed up the safe restoration of our network.”

It’s the first time Musyj has spoken about the attack, and his message served as a counter to the claims of the cybercriminals, who bragged about the extent of the damage in an online blog.

After the hospitals refused to pay, the hackers followed through on their threat of releasing a portion of private health information.

A low angle of a tall, hospital building. — During a hospital board meeting Thursday, Windsor Regional Hospital CEO David Musyj says recovery will take weeks, but that staff are working hard to make sure the hospital is restoring delayed service to patients. (Mike Evans/CBC)

Details about that exposed personal information, along with the cybercriminal group that has claimed responsibility for the attack, have been released in an article from DataBreaches.net — a website run by a retired licensed health-care professional who lives in New York state.

CBC News spoke with the author of the website and has agreed to keep them anonymous to protect their safety.

The author, who goes by the pseudonym Dissent Doe, said they don’t have expertise in cybersecurity, beyond having reported on the

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Department Health

October 20, 2023admin

South Okanagan General Hospital emergency room closed again

For the third time in a week, Interior Health is warning of a “temporary service interruption” at South Okanagan General Hospital in Oliver.

“Limited physician availability” will close the hospital’s emergency department – which is normally open 24 hours a day – from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday, according to the health authority.

Patients seeking emergency services are being directed to Penticton Regional Hospital – about 40 minutes away – during the closure.

It’s the third time a lack of staff has closed the emergency room at SOGH in the last week.

The department was also closed overnight last Saturday into Sunday morning, and it closed again overnight on Wednesday into Thursday.

Limited physician availability was the reason cited on those occasions as well.

In recent weeks, the provincial government has touted its efforts to hire new health care workers, with Health Minister Adrian Dix claiming Tuesday that more than 5,200 “net new” nurses had been hired since January, along with 524 new international medical graduates that have registered and begun working in B.C.

On the ground, however, staffing clearly remains a challenge. South Okanagan General Hospital was one of at least three facilities in Interior Health to close due to lack of staff over the Thanksgiving long weekend, and health-care facilities continue to see reduced hours and unexpected closures in other health authorities, as well.

In Merritt, Mayor Michael Goetz has threatened to withhold health-care payments to the province over repeated closures of the emergency department at Nicola Valley Hospital, and is urging other mayors to do the same.

Although Goetz says he has the ear of the health minister and other provincial officials, he told CTV News this week the province has not provided a plan

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Department Health

October 19, 2023admin

Hundreds killed in Israeli airstrike on Gaza City hospital, Palestinian Health Ministry says

The latest:

Hundreds reported killed in airstrike on Gaza City hospital.
Top Israeli official says aid deal depends on guarantees that Hamas will not seize deliveries.
The number of people in Gaza killed has reached 3,000, Palestinian health ministry says.

The Gaza Health Ministry said an Israeli airstrike Tuesday hit a Gaza City hospital packed with wounded and other Palestinians seeking shelter, killing hundreds. If confirmed, the attack would be by far the deadliest Israeli airstrike in five wars fought since 2008.

Photos from al-Ahli Hospital showed fire engulfing the hospital halls, shattered glass and body parts scattered across the area. The ministry said at least 500 people had been killed.

Several hospitals in Gaza City have become refuges for hundreds of people, hoping they would be spared bombardment after Israel ordered all residents of the city and surrounding areas to evacuate to the southern Gaza Strip.

Israeli military spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said there were still no details on the hospital deaths: We will get the details and update the public. I don’t know to say whether it was an Israeli airstrike.

The injured are crying. — Injured people from the attack on Ahli Arab hospital are taken to Al-Shifa hospital on October 17, 2023.

Photo: Associated Press / Abed Khaled

The news coming out of Gaza is horrific and absolutely unacceptable, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters Tuesday. International humanitarian and international law needs to be respected in this, and in all cases. There are rules around wars and it’s not acceptable to hit a hospital.

In the southern Gaza, continued strikes killed dozens of civilians and at least one senior Hamas figure on Tuesday in attacks Israel says are targeted at militants.

WATCH | People rush to help after an airstrike near Rafah in southern Gaza:

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Health Care

October 18, 2023admin

Manitoba health-care aide fights for life in hospital 2 weeks after deadly crash

Friends and loved ones are rallying behind a Manitoba health-care worker who was nearly killed in a fatal car crash two weeks ago and remains in hospital with extensive injuries.

While Jenny Belmes is fighting for her life, her spouse said doctors believe she’s unlikely to make a full recovery.

“There’s just so many machines keeping her alive, so many tubes in her body,” her spouse Steven Duong said. “She is fighting and I know that there is a piece of her still in there.”

The 40-year-old health-care aide was driving to a night shift at a care home in Arborg, Man., on Oct. 1 when RCMP said a car driving the other way on Highway 7 crossed the centre line and struck her vehicle around 10 p.m.

The other driver, a 35-year-old male from Carvel, Alta., was pronounced dead at the scene.

“I still think about it every single night,” Duong said. “It’s an extremely long uphill battle to see if there are any chances that pieces of Jenny can come back.”

Belmes was airlifted to hospital in critical condition with a fractured pelvic bone and ribs, brain trauma and injuries to her eyes, legs and chest.

A woman in a hospital bed holding a person's hand. — Jenny Belmes is out of a coma but has a long road to recovery ahead. (Submitted by Steven Duong)

She was intubated and spent nearly a week on a ventilator in a coma. She went through brain surgery, bowel and stomach surgery.

Duong tries to keep her family and friends in the Philippines updated on her status by journaling and updating a website he has called “Jenny’s Recovery.“

While Belmes is now breathing on her own, she’s unresponsive and the full extent of her injuries are still unknown.

“They have told me that she’s going to be here for a very

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Department Health

October 18, 2023admin

Palestinians say hundreds killed in Israeli airstrike on hospital; Israel blames Islamic Jihad

The latest:

Hundreds reported killed in airstrike on Gaza City hospital.
Israel denies involvement in hospital blast, says rocket was fired by Islamic Jihad.
Top Israeli official says aid deal depends on guarantees that Hamas will not seize deliveries.
The number of people killed in Gaza reaches 3,000, Palestinian Health Ministry says.

Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry said an Israeli airstrike Tuesday hit a Gaza City hospital packed with wounded and other Palestinians seeking shelter, killing hundreds. However, the Israeli military said it had no involvement in the explosion, which it says was caused by a misfired rocket from the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad.

The ministry in Gaza said about 500 people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on the al-Ahli Hospital and that many of the victims had sought shelter there.

Photos and video purportedly from the hospital on social media showed fire engulfing the building and the hospital’s grounds strewn with torn bodies, many of them young children. Around them in the grass were blankets, school backpacks and other belongings. The images could not immediately be independently verified.

The reported strike came as the U.S. was trying to convince Israel to allow the delivery of supplies to desperate civilians, aid groups and hospitals in the tiny Gaza Strip, which has been under a complete siege since Hamas’s deadly rocket barrage and incursion into southern Israel on Oct. 7.

Hamas called Tuesday’s reported hospital strike “a horrific massacre.”

“The news coming out of Gaza is horrific and absolutely unacceptable,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters Tuesday. “International humanitarian and international law needs to be respected in this, and in all cases. There are rules around wars and it’s not acceptable to hit a hospital.”

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was horrified by the blast, noting hospitals and

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