Hospital bed shortage

A person waiting for a bed at James Paton Memorial Regional Health Centre in Gander may require patience, and according to the local health authority, it is an issue being dealt with across the country.

Sherry Freake, chief operating officer for Central Health in Gander, said bed availability depends on the level of need at any given time.

"It is something that does wax and wane. There are times when we have high numbers of people that require admission, and then there are other times when we don't have as many people that require admission."

Gander resident Ed Beaton recently felt the effects of limited bed availability during an eight-day stay at the local hospital.

Following the recommendation of a family physician, he checked into emergency on April 1 because of leg ulcers giving him discomfort, and was admitted right away.

Mr. Beaton initially expected he would be kept in the emergency department for a night or two on his stretcher before moving to a bed upstairs. Instead, he spent seven nights in emergency.

"They kept saying, 'When we get a bed, we're going to move you upstairs,' and people would come in for a night, and then they would get moved upstairs. They said, 'We're not forgetting you. We're going to get you a bed upstairs."

Amongst those who received rooms ahead of himself were patients with pneumonia and gastric infections.

During his stay, Mr. Beaton said he found emergency staff were constantly on the move dealing with cases.

"Sure, I'm hard to get along with like a lot of people when you're in the hospital, but I'm not going to complain about the treatment. I was treated good when I was there. Sometimes you felt like you were putting yourself in a position where you were taking the nurses away from patients that really needed them."

While Mr. Beaton was not experiencing "a big amount of pain" at the hospital, he said doctors told him to stay. While at the hospital, Mr. Beaton received antibiotic treatments.

Ms. Freake said when demand peaks, the hospital may opt to reschedule elective surgeries in order to make beds available, adding such a move does not happen often.

She said acuity levels are monitored on a daily basis to assist with discharge planning and to help manage the flow of patients.

The demand is directly affected by the aging population, which now finds the baby boomer generation becoming senior citizens.

"In the global perspective, we certainly have a changing demographic, and this region is not any different than the province or Canada as a whole in the fact that people are living longer, and they require more services," said Ms. Freake.

The matter is compounded, she said, by people adopting unhealthy lifestyle practices.

The 2008 Canadian Community Health Survey found Newfoundland and Labrador had the highest obesity rate of any other province at 22 per cent. The national average was 15.5 per cent.

That survey also found this province was at the bottom of the list when it came to being physically active or moderately active in leisure time, at 45.5 per cent for people 12 years or older. The Canadian average was 51.2.

Ms. Freake said there is no simple answer to the problem, but that health promotion is a positive preventative measure.

"There's not one point that's going to fix (bed availability)," she said, adding the Provincial Healthy Aging Strategy may help the situation as government continues to work on it.

Dr. Shawn Tiller, chief of the emergency department for James Paton Memorial Regional Health Centre, said there are a lack of long-term care facilities and rehabilitation centres. This, he said, leads to more people taking up hospital beds.

"Patients that can be cared for in nursing homes are having to be held in acute care facilities, such as James Paton or other hospitals. Because they are there, and in the hospital for long periods of time, the beds allotted for acute care are not available."

Chronic disease management and wait time management are also being looked at by the health authority on a constant basis, said Ms. Freake.

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