Mission accomplished.
The Sundre Hospital and Care Centre will, despite Alberta Health Services' original plan, retain five long-term care beds as well as gain new restorative care and overcapacity beds.
“We're pretty excited about that,” said Gerald Ingeveld, chair of the Sundre Hospital Futures Committee, which formed specifically to make a case for the facility and the need to retain a local long-term care option. The committee is made up of local residents including municipal leaders, business leaders, physicians and employees at the hospital as well as community residents.
“It's very close to what we asked for.”
When AHS officials announced in March their intention to shut down the facility's 15 long-term care beds, many members of the community rallied together and expressed their concerns to the new provincial government and its centralized health agency.
A few months and several public meetings and consultations later, the dedicated efforts of the Sundre Hospital Futures Committee — along with support from the Rimbey-Rocky Mountain House-Sundre riding's MLA Jason Nixon — have yielded a compromise.
“We wanted a solution that the community could get behind, and I believe we have found one by listening to Sundre residents and working together,” said Health Minister Sarah Hoffman in a press release.
“This plan will address the care needs of seniors in the area, protect jobs and improve services in Sundre's hospital.”
The plan moving forward, which will be reviewed after one year, was made possible by information that was provided to officials by the committee.
“This plan is the result of several discussions with stakeholders including physicians, community leaders and elected officials, and will help ensure quality care continues to be available in this community,” said Dr. Verna Yiu, president and CEO of AHS.
The changes at Sundre's hospital are the result of the new continuing care centre, which Mountain View Seniors' Housing operates, although AHS has contracted 40 supportive living beds at the new facility, the press release stated.
“This is a good step forward for the community,” said Ingeveld about the new plan.
“We know that our families and neighbours want to make sure they can receive the care they need in our community. We appreciate that our concerns have been heard.”
Most of the patients who resided at the hospital's long-term care wing have qualified for the supportive living care beds at the new facility, he said, adding he could not say for certain how many would remain at the hospital.
“They have started to move them,” he told the Round Up on Friday, July 8, adding that the patients “have to be assessed right at the day of moving because things can change.”
There are also patients from Sundre who had requested the local hospital as their first choice but could not be accommodated due to insufficient capacity, and they are being contacted to see if they want to return, he said.
In all, the hospital will have 26 beds — 14 acute, which include a maternity bed if needed, five long-term care, four restorative care, and three overcapacity beds, he said.
Restorative care beds are fairly new — dating back less than a decade — and have not been available in Sundre before, he said.
“It's still actually a pilot program. It is up and working in a few communities,” such as Olds, he said, adding about half a dozen municipalities in AHS' Central Zone have restorative care beds.
The intent behind those beds is to provide patients with an intensive physiotherapy program so they can return to their previous level of care sooner rather than later, regardless of whether that is in a lodge home or a private residence, he said.
The overcapacity beds, which are also new to Sundre, will serve essentially as standby units for times when the hospital reaches its maximum occupancy. If and when that should happen, doctors will have to decide whether patients can be cared for with the available staff on hand, whether additional help would need to be called in, or if the patient might have be to transferred elsewhere. After the one-year review, statistics will paint a clearer picture regarding whether those overcapacity beds will become permanently funded, he said.
“There's got to be a very clear measurement of what you're doing before you add the extra funding.”
In the end, only a few beds will be closed, but the space they occupied will still be used for a crucial service.
“And then we get the lab expansion,” he said, adding two rooms with three beds will be converted to accommodate the lab services expansion to ensure new national accreditation standards are met.
“Without that we can't have a hospital, so we need to have that expanded,” he said about the lab services.
Every square inch of the hospital will be put to use in the plan — no part of the facility will be closed until a new purpose can be found, he said.
“That certainly was our goal.”
The redevelopment won't drastically affect the physical appearance of the rooms, but will include a new fire suppression sprinkler system at a cost of about $1.4 million covered by AHS.
The plan also represents some staffing changes, but “most of our staff are going to be able to stay in Sundre,” he said.
There will be some minor changes in the type of staff on site given the opening of the restorative care beds and the need for staff with rehabilitation experience, the press release said.
“Recruitment for those positions will begin immediately. Some nursing staff, including health care aides and LPNs, have already moved to the new continuing care site,” it said.
AHS officials and the committee have agreed to evaluate the new bed configuration at regular intervals prior to a more formal one-year review. The review will evaluate the success of the restorative care beds as well as look at the utilization of the three overcapacity beds, it said.
“This one-year review will help inform the optimal bed configuration at the hospital,” said the release.
Based on the information local doctors have shared, Ingeveld said the futures committee is confident the need for the beds outlined in the plan will be substantiated.
“We've got a year to prove whether we're right,” he said.
