Finch Ave. hospital may reopen
To ease overcrowding, the province is considering plan to use now-closed site for non-acute patients
The province is considering a plan to re-open the closed Finch Ave. site of the old Humber River hospital, creating up to150 beds for patients who don’t need to be in overcrowded, acute-care hospitals.
Health Minister Eric Hoskins said the measure, for patients waiting for beds in nursing homes, rehab facilities or home care, presents a “tremendous opportunity” and similar moves are being examined elsewhere in Ontario.
“We’re having a number of conversations with other hospitals across the province,” Hoskins said, noting that proposals are coming from hospital officials themselves.
The patients who could be moved out of acute-care hospitals such as Toronto General, are in so-called “alternate-level-of-care” beds and do not require acute care, Hoskins told reporters.
New Democrat MPP Peter Tabuns raised concerns that the government is planning a scheme to “warehouse seniors waiting for long-term care” and complained about poor treatment of patients as the Liberal government has cut growth in hospital funding.
“Hospitals are desperately overcrowded. Patients are being left in hallways for days. People are waiting in emergency rooms for 12 hours or more. Wait lists for long-term care are now years long,” he said in the Legislature’s daily question period.
Hoskins said he was bewildered at the NDP response about the old Humber site, which closed after the new, state-of-the-art, $4-billion Humber River hospital opened near Keele St. and Hwy. 401 in October 2015.
“I can’t, for the life of me, understand why the member would oppose this,” said Hoskins, a physician. “Only the NDP would demand more (hospital) capacity and then complain about us creating capacity.”
The Ontario Hospital Association said in a statement that it appreciates the government efforts “to swiftly address these capacity challenges” and supports “creative solutions” to solving them.
Alternate-level-of-care beds in acute-care hospitals have long been considered a barrier to getting patients out of emergency rooms and into proper hospital rooms.
The government set aside $24 million in last spring’s budget to look at ways of freeing up acute-care hospital beds to account for a growing and aging population in the province.
Reopening old hospitals when new ones opened could free a “significant number” of beds
Hoskins pledged any patients moved from acute-care hospitals to alternative sites, such as the old Humber Finch campus, would get “highly specialized, expert care that’s specifically focused at their individual needs.”
He called it “the right kind of care in the right place.”
Using older hospitals shut down when replacement facilities have opened could create “a significant number” of beds, the minister added.
Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown said the proposal suggests the government is in “damagecontrol” mode from years of shortchanging the health-care system.
“We have hallway medicine; people are being cared for in inappropriate places.”
Brown said alternative-level-ofcare beds account for as many as one-fifth of beds in some hospitals.
“The government has not invested adequately in home care and in longterm care. . . . We have a crisis in our hospitals and the government has been asleep at the switch.”