MIndemoya Hospital reopens; health official says more work to be done

The ribbon has officially been cut – patients at Manitoulin Health Centre have a new emergency room to use at the Mindemoya Hospital – but one health official says the work is far from over.

The comments were made recently at the grand re-opening of the department outside the facility on Manitoulin Island.

"Our clinicians now get to work in a state-of-the-art facility with improvements in infection control to protect them, protect patients, a new mental health and addictions area, a family room," said CEO Paula Fields.

"Really we needed to grow because our volumes have increased over the last few years and we needed the space to accommodate all of the patients that come to see us."

According to health officials, they are roughly sitting at over 10,000 visits to the emergency department a year.

"People are going to notice that there are increased clinical spaces,” said Fields.

“We've increased clinical spaces to deal with the patient flows and the increase."

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However, it was the comments from the president of professional staff, who championed their accomplishments, but called for more to be done that caught the attention of some.

"We are grateful to everyone to everyone who helped to design the emergency department, but we would not be here without those who advocated for it, fundraised and donated for it and who worked, received care during the noise and the hub-bub so thank you to each of you," said Dr. Maurianne Reade.

"And yet, we're not done our work."

"I'm not referring to our flooring or our much-anticipated chemotherapy suite, I'm talking about the needs for more physicians to stabilize our workforce, our two-site hospital and our clinics," she said.

Demands are nothing new for healthcare on the North Shore and Reade joins an already growing chorus of people calling on the provincial government to better supplement hospitals across the region.

"As professional staff, we have been advocating for an increased number of doctors in Mindemoya and Little Current,” said Reade.

“Six positions granted to us about 25 years ago has not changed with the increase in demand as our population grows as tourism increases and as our patient needs become more complex."

The doctor said each hospital has six positions each – but 10,000 visits at one site when the island's population is only 13,500 is a lot. As staff, she said they are striving for culturally safe care but they are advocating for more resources for the island and called for others to join in their efforts.

Members of the Manitoulin Island community celebrated the reopening of the MIndemoya Hospital emergency room last week. (Ian Campbell/CTV News Northern Ontairo)"From health and human resources, we are still at a critical level. The six positions that we have full-time in Mindemoya is the same in Little Current and it's really not enough," said Reade.

"We continue to see an increase in tourism and there has been a substantial increase in emergency departments year over year. Sticking at over 10,000 visits per year and yet other communities that have a similar physician complement, they are seeing half of that emergency department volume.”

Officials at the hospital said other communities may be able to do that volume because they can count on getting several hours of sleep but on the island they have had to split shifts for several years.

Reade said while doing all this and still teaching new residents at NOSM University, it's been too much and the community deserves more.

"It's not even burn-out as much as it is moral injury,” she added.

“Burn-out often implies well if you took care of yourself doctor, you'd be in a better place but in fact, we are being asked to do the impossible so when we feel bad, it's moral injury."

Similar situations have been reported at other hospitals including Blind River, Elliot Lake and Thessalon.

Algoma-Manitoulin MPP Michael Mantha has been a champion for the issue of getting rural healthcare settings additional help for a few years now.

"Renovations and projects such as these will go a long way to recruiting doctors and securing the future of primary care however our government needs to step up, our government needs to aggressively look at a recruitment and retainment program for doctors in Northern Ontario," he told CTVNews.

"We're in crisis, we need doctors in our communities. Primary care is missing in many of our communities, there are emergency rooms that are forced to close because of a lack of doctors, we are scheduling week by week, some days by days to make sure we can keep our hospitals open."

Due to a shortage of available doctors, Manitoulin Health Centre said Tuesday it will only be operating one of its two emergency departments for several days in October. (File)NDP Ontario Health Critic France Gélinas said this project has been eight years in the making and construction actually broke ground in the middle of the pandemic.

"Today is a happy day,” she said.

“Here it is, a state-of-the-art emergency department in a small northern, rural, hospital. That doesn't happen very often, it happened because they did all the fundraising, they did all of the work locally and succeeded but at the same time she made it really clear, for the last 30 years there has been funding for six positions on Manitoulin Island, well Manitoulin Island has grown and there are more complex needs.”

Gélinas said there are new graduates that are interested in coming to work on Manitoulin Island yet we cannot get the government to fund more positions.

Hospital officials said they managed to do what some might consider impossible – stay mostly on budget and on time with this build.

The emergency department is open now, it's able to accommodate more patients after increasing the overall flow.

"We definitely need to increase all health resources, nurses, social workers, therapists, physicians, especially in small rural areas where we don't have other units to pull from," said Fields.

"It's even more challenging."

Government and health officials recognized Manitoulin Health Centre and the community for their efforts to renovate the Mindemoya Hospital's emergency room. (Ian Campbell/CTV News Northern Ontario)Mantha said this was a community-driven project that would not have been made possible, without the help of such amazing volunteers.

"You cannot take away the heart of these communities in northern Ontario, they know their needs, they know their communities, they know the care that they want and they know the care that is needed in their communities so pursuing those goals, recruiting those doctors, reaching out and making sure they get the care, the primary care they need in their communities is absolutely at the top of their list," Mantha said.