Madame Speaker, I recently outlined government’s plan for Better Access, Better Care for Islanders. Part of this plan sees The Community Hospital O’Leary and Souris Hospital become specialized extended care hospitals – – – extended care is quite different than long term or acute care.
Our Acute Care Beds treat patients with a severe injury or illness, an urgent medical condition, or recovering from surgery. Most acute care patients need ongoing in hospital care from a specialist.
Our long term care manors across the province provide a home for seniors who can no longer live independently and need daily medical and nursing supervision.
Extended Care hospitals are for inpatients who need hospital care while they wait to go to a nursing home or arrangements are made for them go home.
Alternate level of care (or extended care) is a clinical term, used at hospitals across the country.
It just means you’re sick enough to be in hospital under a doctor’s care — but you’re not so acutely ill you need specialists hovering around you 24/7. This type of hospital care provides medical services to a diverse group of patients with complex health needs.
An example of the type of patient in this type of hospital is someone who has suffered a stroke or a badly broken leg and is working at getting strong, independent and confident enough to go home. The acute phase of their hospitalization is over but they’re not quite ready to go home.
Another patient you would meet in this type of hospital would be someone recovering from of an infectious disease and still on intravenous antibiotics or an elderly patient with a new hip who lives alone and has difficulty with her post-op mobility.
Extended care hospitals also offer respite care to families who are caring for complex patients at home. This includes Alzheimer’s patients who live with their adult children.
Extended care may also include Palliative care.
These are just a few examples of the type of health care we expect to see in O’Leary and Souris.
These patients require the services of family physicians, nurses, LPN’s and allied health workers like physiotherapists to help restore their health. Souris and O’leary hospitals help ensure patients who want to go home instead of to a manor have that option.
Health PEI will work with each facility to determine its exact mix of services; but we do know Souris and O’Leary hospitals will specialize in extended care and the physician complement across the province will not change.
Every one of our existing health care facilities has an important role in the system that ensures Islanders get the appropriate care.
On average, we have 80 patients in acute care beds who don’t need to be This bottleneck causes some patients to wait on stretchers in the emergency department- – – This is unacceptable and the domino effect is on our elective surgery wait times and our emergency room services.
It is paramount that patients who no longer need acute hospital services to have safe, accessible health services available to meet their needs.
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