news-Sault Area Hospital

The manager of care coordination for the Northeast Community Care Access Centre says the wait-list for those people looking for initial long-term care placements has been reduced marginally by government investments for programs that keep elderly people in their homes longer.  Brad Robertson also says the opening of 50 short-stay beds at Cedarwood Lodge about a year ago provided an initial impact for Sault Area Hospital but there won’t be an ongoing impact to that degree.  Robertson says that’s due to the slow turnover of beds.  He says the elderly can face the prospect of spending years in a hospital setting before being placed in a long-term care facility…

 

The latest numbers from the Community Care Access Centre shows there are 995 long-terrm care beds for the Sault and Algoma and there are over 11-hundred waiting for initial long-term care placements.  The Hospital meantime consistently runs at about 105% of bed capacity and has been averaging 45 alternative level care patients taking up a hospital bed.
The Provincial Minister Responsilble for Senior Affairs Dipika Damerla told a committee hearing at Queen’s Park last month that the province is working on a capacity plan to determine how many more beds are needed.