Waterloo ‘shines’ as Canada’s top city to attract newcomers

[Spokes]

I've been arguing for a while after talking to people in the health care industry, we really need a NEW hospital. Not to keep expanding those that we already have, we need another.

I don't understand what problem this would solve.

That the expansions aren't really doing enough to stop the wait times. That currently our hospitals are overflowing. An expansion is a band-aid fix that doesn't actually solve the problem in the short or long term.

[ookpik]

That the expansions aren't really doing enough to stop the wait times. That currently our hospitals are overflowing. An expansion is a band-aid fix that doesn't actually solve the problem in the short or long term.

The long wait times are the result of issues like
(1) Lack of walk-in clinics that are open 24x7. This results in too many people going to Emerg unnecessarily
(2) Lack of rehab, assisted living and long term care facilities as well as home care. All too many recovering patients who could be discharged remain in hospital blocking beds needed by incoming patients.

Neither building expansions nor building new buildings will address those sorts of issues. It's like a water reservoir. If the input flow is greater than the output flow then the reservoir will overflow no matter how much bigger you make it,

If we addressed the underlying causes of long wait times at our hospitals we wouldn't need to expand them as much let alone build new ones. It's happening now but it's happening too slowly. The Boardwalk medical building is one attempt but it's not open 24x7. We're building more LTC facilities but not enough. We're increasing resources for home care but not nearly fast enough.

That said, as the region grows in physical size and density we may need more hospitals so that first responders can get emergency patients to the hospital within acceptable time limits.

[kwliving]

IMO hospitals are overrated as far as meeting healthcare needs. We need access to clinics and 24 hour non-emergency care much more than another emergency department.

The major hurdle is getting society to believe that more money thrown at hospitals = better healthcare.

[DHLawrence]

Clinics aren't enough; we need medical professionals willing to send patients to clinics. One time I had a medical concern and phoned my doctor's after-hours clinic. They recommended I go to the ER. I couldn't go to a walk-in clinic because our doctor would drop me as a patient. Apparently it's not an uncommon practice among GPs, either.

[ookpik]

They recommended I go to the ER. I couldn't go to a walk-in clinic because our doctor would drop me as a patient. Apparently it's not an uncommon practice among GPs, either.

That's not a problem with clinics. It's a well-known OHIP problem. When the clinic bills for seeing you, OHIP changes the your doctor of record to the clinic and your regular FP stops getting capitation payments for you. That sort of thing doesn't happen if you go to a hospital emerg. Yes this needs to be addressed as well.

[DanHerman]

I was in Beijing a few weeks back and, thanks to jetlag and to a very limited number of English language channels, watched this interesting show on Singapore and ER wait times: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/tv/tvsho ... 40536.html

Note the international comparison at the 8 minute mark, as well as the review of the Netherlands and their leading ER/health solution at 12 minutes. Distributed systems + public education.

[Spokes]

Clinics aren't enough; we need medical professionals willing to send patients to clinics. One time I had a medical concern and phoned my doctor's after-hours clinic. They recommended I go to the ER. I couldn't go to a walk-in clinic because our doctor would drop me as a patient. Apparently it's not an uncommon practice among GPs, either.

I've had the exact same thing happen. Very frustrating.

[ookpik]

Seniors-on-stretchers: a health care disgrace

The commissioner makes the point that waits in the ER are not the fault of the ER. The endless bottlenecks are due to problems upstream and downstream. In other words, it’s an engineering issue, not a medical one.

The commissioner estimates that 60 per cent of patients who go to the emergency room should not be there at all...

The real worrisome situation is that of the non-ambulatory patients stuck in ER purgatory.

Some of the gurney-bound are waiting for a hospital bed, but only about one-third are admitted to hospital. Beds are in short supply because there are many frail seniors already stuck living in hospital with nowhere to go for lack of home care or long-term care beds.

The majority of elderly ER patients have the same dilemma: They’re not sick enough to be hospitalized, but too sick to go home alone, or back to a nursing home where there is no medical care.

It’s a perverse scenario that plays out daily and with increasing frequency.

But we know the solution.

We don’t need bigger ERs. We need to shift resources from hospitals into primary care for the ambulatory and home care and community care for the non-ambulatory.