Mount Forest sits between Guelph and Owen Sound in southwestern Ontario.
A COVID-19 outbreak at Louise Marshall Hospital is putting additional strain on the system, said the hospital’s president and CEO, Angela Stanley.
Staffing throughout the summer at our sites has been precarious
Ms. Stanley told CBC News.
Our staff, all clinical providers, direct care providers and indirect care providers, are extremely fatigued. For more than two years they have been making sacrifices by giving up their holidays, sacrificing time spent with family and friends. And they work a lot of overtime to deal with patients who come in much sicker.
According to Ms Stanley, the decision was not taken lightly, but after realizing there were significant staffing gaps, the hospital realized it needed to reduce its working hours. ‘opening.
The hospital’s emergency department will close at 5 p.m. Saturday and reopen at 7 a.m. Sunday. It will close again on Sunday at 5 p.m. and reopen at 7 a.m. on Monday.
The nearest ERs are in Palmerston, a 20-minute drive, Durham, 23 minutes, or Listowel, a 32-minute drive from Mount Forest.
Closed emergencies
Mount Forest Hospital ER will be closed, as have several other ERs across the province in recent weeks.
The Ontario Ministry of Health recently released new statistics showing record wait times and patient volumes in emergency departments across the province in May.
The emergency department at Clinton Public Hospital was temporarily closed over the Canada Day long weekend due to shortages of nurses and doctors. This week, its opening hours have been limited. It was open Tuesday from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Seaforth Community Hospital has also reduced the hours of its emergency department this week. It is open 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, the Huron Perth Healthcare Alliance website says.
Similarly, hospitals in Wingham, Listowel and Chesley reduced their hours last weekend.
All efforts to find personnel for the emergency department have been undertaken without success
the South Bruce Gray Health Center said on its website about Chesley Hospital.
Mary Cardinal, vice president of human resources and director of quality at the Huron Perth Healthcare Alliance, said in a statement posted on the website that she had heard public concerns about the reduction in services.
These are not isolated incidents and hospitals across the province are experiencing similar challenges
said Ms. Cardinal.
According to Jimmy Trieu, president and CEO of Alexandra Marie General Hospital in Goderich and the South Huron Hospital Association, over the past four years many health care workers have retired. He adds that one in five hospital staff in the province is over the age of 50. Those who left the profession cited the pandemic and burnout as the main reasons.
Summer will be difficult due to pressure on staff
Mr. Trieu said in the press release.
Compulsory vaccination is not to blame
Ms Stanley acknowledged that this is not an isolated situation and that staffing was an issue even before the COVID-19 pandemic.
The problem has existed for a number of years. The pandemic has only exacerbated the problems we face
she said.
Ms Stanley noted that she’s heard people say hospitals should rehire healthcare workers who opted out of getting the COVID-19 vaccine, but she says the mandatory vaccination isn’t to blame.
[À l’hôpital Louise Marshall], only one nurse chose to leave because of compulsory vaccination. So that’s really not the problem
said Ms Stanley.
[Ces discussions] divert attention from the problems we face. We are wasting time talking about it when we should be problem solving and talking about what we know is the cause of these vacancies, staff turnover and health care staff leaving.
Ms Stanley asked the community for their continued support and patience over the coming weeks.
We are seeing more and more concerns and behaviors from the patients we see, adding to the stress on our clinicians and their efforts to care for them.
she added.
The biggest thing I could ask for, especially over this weekend right now, is patience and continued support.
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