The CEO of the Huron-Perth Healthcare Alliance says he's never seen the backup of patients at the hospitals in Clinton, Seaforth, Stratford and St. Marys like it was earlier this week.
Andrew Williams says it's difficult to point to one thing, but more a combination things happening at the same time. “It's a busy time of year. Flu numbers are going up. Respiratory numbers are up," he says. "We're having some challenges in community with hiring personal support workers which impacts community care and home care availability. We're trying to open flex beds in hospitals and we're trying to staff those.”
Williams says as of Thursday, it appeared the worst is behind them, but it'll take a few more weeks before they can say the crisis is over.
“We're seeing some relief now actually. Our holders in our emergency departments are going down, which is positive. We are functioning from an elective surgery point of view as we would want to today. But it's going to be probably the next few weeks that are going to tell the tale on how long this will take."
Williams adds, “The ER team has really stepped out across all four sites, as people are right across the system at this time if the year, but people have to do different things and we have to look at roles when we're re-assigning staff to help in some of the really busy areas. In essence, it's all hands on deck to look at the people we have here currently.”
