Hospital ramps up to run at 115% to clear backlog
Province promises more funding, but doctor says more staff needed
Windsor Regional Hospital is struggling with a shortage of staff and real estate as it gears up to run over capacity to clear a backlog of surgeries brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“There's a lot of things that have to go right, and we still need a lot of people to help make that happen,” said Dr. Wassim Saad, the hospital's chief of staff.
“I've said they could throw a billion dollars at trying to solve this problem. If you don't have the people … to be able to support it, it just won't work.
“With everything that's happened with the pandemic and how tired everybody is, it really is a big ask to have somebody put in an extra 15 per cent beyond what they've been doing. So it almost has to be new hires and new people doing this, which doesn't happen very quickly.”
The province said Wednesday it wants Ontario's hospitals operating at 110 to 115 per cent capacity to catch up on elective and non-urgent procedures halted by COVID-19.
“Ontario's hospitals have been unwavering in their commitment to provide exceptional care to Ontarians,” said Health Minister Christine Elliott.
“While the pandemic has been challenging for hospitals, we have made significant progress in addressing wait times for surgeries and other procedures and are in a much better situation than was expected mere months ago.
“As Ontario continues on the path to reopening and recovery, our government is committed to improving access and reducing wait times for scheduled surgeries and procedures across the province.”
The government is committing $324 million in extra funding to help hospitals perform more surgeries, MRI and CT scans, including on evenings and weekends.
The funding will allow hospitals to perform up to 67,000 additional surgeries and 135,000 more diagnostic imaging hours, the province said.
Rick Nicholls, MPP for Chatham-kent—leamington, said Thursday that Windsor Regional Hospital will receive an additional $7,848,700.
Hotel-dieu Grace Healthcare will receive $1,566,500 and Erie Shores Healthcare gets $1,504,500.
The province issued orders twice, in December 2020 and April, for hospitals to stop doing elective surgeries and non-urgent procedures to be ready for surges in pandemic patients.
Windsor Regional normally averages 30,000 surgeries in a year. They are currently behind about 3,500 cases.
“That's still a significant number for our region and it's certainly not ideal,” said Saad. “It will take quite a bit of time to clear out.”
He said the hospital has a couple things going for it. Windsor Regional was one of the few hospitals in the country that continued doing cancer surgeries throughout the pandemic, so there isn't a huge backlog of those, he said.
It also partnered with eye surgeon Dr. Fouad Tayfour and transferred all cataract procedures to his Windsor Laser Eye Institute.
“They've been able to run at 107 per cent because they're not using hospital resources and they're able to do the work after hours and on weekends — whatever they need to clear it up,” said Saad. “So we're in good shape when it comes to cataracts.”
But there are some considerable hurdles.
“You need the physical space and the infrastructure,” said Saad. “Then on top of that, you need the human health resources. Both of those, I think right now, are very big asks, not just of Windsor Regional Hospital but all the other hospitals being asked to do this to try and clear up the backlog.”
To address the lack of space, the hospital will have extended hours for surgeries.
“If you can't create more space, you just have to do it in the space that you have, just outside of normal business hours,” said Saad. “That's the only way to do it right now.”
In the short term, that means extending the days. He said the hospital doesn't have enough anesthesiologists to do weekends.
“We're already limited with respect to our anesthesia services,” said Saad. “This has been an ongoing problem for years. Not just a local problem but provincially and nationally. They're just not graduating enough anesthesiologists to fill the need. That's going to be another big ask, to have our current anesthesiologists put in more hours, more days. I can tell you, hiring a new anesthesiologist now is near impossible.”
The hospital also needs to hire more nurses. But that, too, is easier said than done.
“We tried to hire new nurses,” said Saad. “The ministry announced funding during COVID. But again, they don't graduate every week or every month. These are on cycles of usually annual graduations. Even then, by the time they get trained up to do a particular procedure it takes even longer.”
And there's one other unknown in the equation.
“The other big variable is what's going to happen with COVID and potentially a fourth wave,” said Saad. “This is all contingent on things continuing to move in the right direction. But if we hit a fourth wave, all bets are off and we're back to the drawing board.”