SUDBURY - Northern Ontario's largest hospital, Health Sciences North (HSN), had to say no to any patient transfers coming in from the wider regional area of Northeastern Ontario this past Friday, Jan. 17.
"Last Friday afternoon, our occupancy levels across the hospital were extremely high, more than 121 per cent,” said HSN spokesperson Jason Turnbull. “Our Critical Care teams were caring for 23 patients on ventilators and had zero capacity for more patients.”
He said HSN is the regional referral centre for Northeastern Ontario, with 23 other hospitals across the North that rely on HSN for specialized patient care such as critical and traumatic care.
But Friday was unusual with the Emergency Department reporting high numbers of patients, with more than 30 admitted to the ED waiting to be admitted for additional care in other parts of the hospital.
"Given this, on Friday afternoon, after much discussion with clinical leaders at HSN and across the region, we informed our regional partners that while we would still accept referrals from Espanola, Manitoulin and Elliot Lake, we were unable to accept any patient transfers from other centres, as we just didn’t have space for more patients who needed urgent care," said Turnbull.
He said such decisions are never made lightly and were done with the overall safety of patients being top of mind to ensure patients get the best care as quickly as possible.
"There are plans in place across Ontario’s health-care system when situations like this occur. Ontario’s Critical system works across the health system to ensure patients get the urgent care they need," said Turnbull.
"Our teams continued to monitor the situation and focus on the patients who were at HSN and by Saturday afternoon, we had reopened to the region for all referrals," Turnbull added.
