A Foreword by Doug Draper
While many residents in south Niagara remain angry over the loss of emergency room services in their communities, Premier Dalton McGuinty and his Liberal government are investing more than $1.9 million to reduce waiting times at emergency rooms in St. Catharines.
St. Catharines Liberal MPP and cabinet minister Jim Bradley
The emergency rooms at the hospitals in Fort Erie and Port Colborne were closed over the past two years and wait times at the facilities in Welland and Niagara Falls have increased, according to a number of reports.
The news about funding for emergency room services in St. Catharines came to Niagara At Large in the form of a media release from the office of St. Catharines Liberal MPP and cabinet minister Jim Bradley. We are posting it below for your information and comment.
Shorter ER Wait Times For Niagara Residents
Ontario Government’s Investment Helping ERs Better Serve Patients
NEWS May 20, 2011
Ontario is helping to reduce the time Niagara-area residents spend in emergency rooms.
This year, St. Catharines General site of the Niagara Health System is receiving $1,910,600 to further reduce ER wait times by implementing initiatives such as 10 additional short-stay in-patient beds, the introduction of a nurse practitioner and increased support services such as portering and cleaning to help improve the time it takes to move newly admitted patients from the ER into in-patient beds.
A new component of this year’s ER wait times reduction initiative is funding for hospital short-stay beds to reduce the time admitted patients spend in the ER.
With this investment, St. Catharines General site will operate 10 short-stay unit beds. Short-stay beds will be located on the hospital’s in-patient wards. Only patients admitted through the ER will have access to these beds where they may stay for a maximum of 72 hours before being discharged or transferred to another ward in the hospital. The beds will help improve the flow in ERs by ensuring patients receive the right care in the right setting and are transferred out of the ER sooner.
The St. Catharines General is also receiving $7,500 in bonus funding in recognition of treating more patients within provincial targets in the second half of the last fiscal year. This funding has been reinvested in the St. Catharines ER.
As of March 2011, at St. Catharines General 67 percent of ER patients were treated within the provincial targets which are four hours for patients with minor/uncomplicated conditions and eight hours for patients with complex or serious conditions.
Since the province started measuring wait times in 2008, St. Catharines General has been able to reduce its ER wait times by 36 minutes (3 per cent) while wait times at the Ontario Street Site Urgent Care are amongst the shortest in the province at 2.2 hours thanks in part to Ontario’s ER wait time reduction initiative.
Today’s announcement is part of the government’s Open Ontario Plan to provide more access to health care services while improving quality and accountability for patients.
QUOTES
“Both the ER at St. Catharines General and the Urgent Care Centre at the Ontario Street Site have consistently provided quality care to patients and families from across our community. The doctors and nurses in our local ER program are continually striving to improve on wait times. . Our government’s ER wait times reduction initiative is proving to be a very successful way of encouraging new, ground-breaking approaches to improving patient care in the ER.”
– Jim Bradley, MPP St. Catharines
“I’m especially proud of the hospitals that consistently provide high quality, efficient care for patients in their community and I’m excited to be moving forward with this investment and the new short stay beds program so we can keep building on this progress.”
– Deb Matthews, Minister of Health and Long-Term Care
“Our goal is to deliver quality care to the people of Niagara and to continually seek to improve the way we do that. We truly welcome and appreciate this important investment as it will help us significantly reduce the time our patients who are admitted through the ER wait for an in-patient bed.
– Sue Matthews, Interim President & CEO, Niagara Health System
The investment being made in the St. Catharines emergency department is great news for the community. Our LHIN has made improving access to care a priority. The investment of short stay beds further supports a number of initiatives being implemented including funding initiatives targeted at improving the ER performance, increasing home and community supports to facilitate timely discharge as well as avoid unnecessary ER visits or hospital admissions
-Juanita Gledhill, HNHB LHIN Chair
QUICK FACTS
§ § Ontario is providing a total of $100 million to help 74 Ontario hospitals put in place initiatives that reduce bottlenecks in the ER – such as patient flow tracking systems and hiring nurse practitioners to treat patients with less complex conditions.
§ § These busy hospitals represent more than 75 per cent of all ER visits in Ontario.
§ § 84 per cent of all Ontario patients who visit emergency rooms are being seen within the provincial targets which are four hours for patients with minor/uncomplicated conditions and eight hours for patients with complex/serious conditions.
§ § Total time spent in ER is the maximum time nine out of 10 Ontarians spend in the ER and is measured from the moment patients register or initially see a triage nurse until the time they leave the ER. The time they leave the ER may be when they are sent home after being treated or when they are admitted to hospital.
§ § The government will also be helping more alternate level of care (ALC) patients find appropriate care in the community by increasing funding to the community care sector by three per cent in 2011/12.
LEARN MORE
Learn about alternatives to a hospital ER.
Find out more about the ER wait times reporting.
(Please share your comments on this issue below and visit Niagara At Large at www.niagaraatlarge.com for more news and commentary on matters of interest and concern to resident in our greater Niagara region and beyond.)
Niagara At Large 
What has this Liberal Gov’t got against the people of the Southern Tier.
We pay our taxes, we get sick too, we have loved ones die in an ambulance being taken to out of town Hospitals,we are in the lineups causing the congestion in Niagara Falls and Welland ER’s and we are among the ones admitted to Hospital in the Emergency Departments waiting an average of over 45 hours for a medical bed to open up.
Dr Kitts said the Operating Rooms in NFGH need serious upgrades and here we are 3 years later with another “Sorry about your luck Southern Tier”
We are happy for St Catharines, Bradley and this blatant political pre-election voter purchase but HELLO,,,Niagara does not stop like a Go Train in St Catharines.
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And there goes the savings they supposedly created by closing the ER’s in Ft Erie & Pt. Colbourne – Will they ever figure it out – It’s time to put them out – Hurry up election time.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Thank you Mr Bradley for only spending $191,060 per bed per year ($523 per day per bed) to help St.Catharines. IT’s not like we the residents of Fort Erie and Port Colborne need an ER at all. We’re happy to continue to have our wealth transferred to help the poor starving people of St.Catharines. Our “dying” gratitude will be returned to you on Election Day 2011.
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The Dalton gang are trying a death bed repentance, my grandson and fiance waited 12 hours for a doctor at St Catharines General and 11hours at Hotel Dieu no doctor , she gave birth to a still born baby in the womens wash room, the Dalton gang can go to hell as far as I am concerned. these people make me puke..
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I just returned from a wake for a lovely lady who had some of the wonderful hospital care in Niagara. Shame.
As for short stay beds, we called them holding and it is just dumping people wherever they can until they can find a place for them. Usually these areas are underserviced, understaffed, uncomfortable and makeshift at best and the short stays in these areas become long stays when protocols cannot be observed. Just more propaganda.
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THIS MONETARY INJECTION IS MEANT TO GET Liberal BRADLEY re-ELECTED and it probably will they did the same last election passing out “OUR” tax money to buy people’s vote especially the teachers.
Two years ago while watching Queens Park I and others including MPPs from the opposition got one hell of a laugh seeing the NOW Health Minister Deb Matthews (who sat directly behind McGuinty) her head moving in all directions in concert with McGuinty’s dialogue and one might think she was going to climb over her desk and…… anyway when this woman got the job I heard remarks from certain elements like thank goodness we now have a woman there things will change. I scoffed at this and drew some anger but I don’t see any anger today all I see and hear is DISGUST for this person
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The Lord giveth and The Lord taketh away….or in this case The McGuinty Government. They insisted 100 beds in Niagara be closed as they were too costly. Now they are reopening some of them and calling them short stay.
Jim Bradley, Sue Matthews and Juanita Gledhill are crowing about what a wonderful program this is. Please tell me this is a joke. Of course it will help if you open hospital beds. If you had only asked, we would have told you that. I t
I think they have been driven to this drastic measure as their latest reports acknowledge…or admit….96% of the patients in ER have to wait 46.5 hours to be admitted to a hospital. SHOCKING!!!!!
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