N.L. adding care beds in Corner Brook hospital, exploring new facility to keep beds open

Newfoundland and Labrador is expanding the number of care beds available in western Newfoundland, and is putting plans in motion on a new alternative level of care centre — which the province says will lead to more beds available at the Western Memorial Regional Hospital.

The hospital currently has 164 beds, with 120 set aside for medical and surgical purposes. Teara Freake, Newfoundland and Labrador's vice president and COO for the western zone, said at any given time between 25 and 35 beds can be taken up by patients who no longer need acute care.

Health Minister John Hogan said these patients are classified as needing alternative levels of care (ALC) outside of a hospital, and said the province is taking short-term and long-term steps to ensure the best kind of care is available.

"They should be discharged, and discharged back into the community. But of course they need to be discharged when it's safe and appropriate to do so," Hogan said Friday. "So while that is ongoing … they're using an acute care bed that really should be for somebody else."

Three of those solutions include modifying single occupancy rooms at Corner Brook's long-term care centre into double occupancy rooms, which Hogan said has resulted in 15 additional beds.

The western zone of N.L. Health Services will also launch a pilot project involving software successful in other zones to explore how discharges from hospital can be done sooner, according to Freake.

"This is about coordinating the care earlier in the discharge plan, and ensuring the home supports, the equipment ... those sorts of things that are needed for someone to transition home are coordinated and done more seamlessly than we've been able to do traditionally," Freake said, adding the software should be implemented in November.

Freake said the work will also help avoid people entering long-term care prematurely when other care options could be more beneficial.

Finally, the province will soon issue a request for proposals for the creation of an alternative level of care centre, which Hogan said will create more capacity within the health-care system.

"They can be discharged from the hospital, the acute-care bed can be used as intended, as appropriate," he said. "It's a transformational piece. It's going to take some time for all these things to work through the system and to create a new health-care system for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. And this is part of it. This is part of the vision that [the] Health Accord speaks about."

Hospital is the right size, despite opposition concerns: Hogan

The announcement comes as Hogan's political opposition say a lack of planning was put into the Corner Brook hospital. Opened just four months ago, PC health critic Barry Petten called Friday's announcement an embarrassment.

"You're only open a few months, and now you're looking for extra spaces for long-term care…. Now we're short on long-term care spaces, we're looking for interim solutions," Petten said. "Poor planning, that's the bottom line."

Hogan told reporters the hospital is the right size for the region, and that more beds wouldn't solve the problem of people needing alternative levels of care.

"Building a hospital with 400 beds wouldn't solve the issue of where people who are in alternate level of care need to go. Cause they don't need to go to a hospital," he said.

Petten said that feels like a display of smoke and mirrors to him, adding the province needs to listen to opposition who were calling for more beds from the start. He also voiced concern over turning private rooms into double occupancy rooms, saying people in care will likely have others living with them against their will or wishes.

Asked for his reaction to Hogan's comments, NDP Leader Jim Dinn laughed.

"It's almost as if government didn't realize we have an aging population with other needs in all these announcements," he said.

"When we talk about the double occupancy, we're getting away from the real issue, I think, of a lack of planning on the acknowledgement or preparation for this. I don't know if government fully understands sometimes the nature of the problem we're facing." 

Freake disputed that idea when asked by reporters, saying N.L. Health Services has explored ALC options for some time.

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