heads up on hospital discharginging

[GRUMPY]

I though that at it was a rare occurrence with our family when it happened but I have seen it happen to others and now it has happened again to a good chum. It seems that somebody at the hospital has gotten this moronic idea that just before the weekend or a holiday that it is best to "free up" a few bed in case they need them over the weekend or holiday. To me this would make sense if they were sending heathy people home however all they end up doing is endangering those that they send home plus adding an extra workload to an already over taxed emergency ward. With my father he got to stay a whole two days at home before he was rushed back to the hospital in an ambulance while my chums Dad only got about 10 hours out before he was rushed back in. Will it take a fatality before these bone heads smarten up and actually start to practise medicine!!!! On a side note I thought there was something in the Hippocratic Oath (aptly named) that mentions something about no harm being done to the patient.

[The 6th Member Of AC/DC]

I hear ya Grump, been through this a few times already...

[GRUMPY]

What good is a new multimillion dollar building going to do if it is still run by the same morons? Yes the ones we have now are old and dirty. You can't do anything about there age but who had the brain fart and thought "Hey I know how we can save a ton of money lets cut back on the cleaning after all whats a little dust?" I think they might have thought that up just before they came up with my favorite " We've been doing such a great job we deserve more money.".

[Peety]

The new one will be new and dirty,,What will change?

[GRUMPY]

These jokers have been watching too many movies if you ask me,when asked about how they were going to get enough staff for it their response was "if you build it they will come". Now excuse me if I'm mistaken but wasn't that the theme of A Field of Dreams?

[KDawg]

I agree with that, except I think Grumpy was referring to SAH administration, and not front-line staff.

[Trollic]

in the hospital count the offices that where patient rooms and you will notice that the rooms are still there just more paper pushers, the whole third floor is offices

[GRUMPY]

It's not the hospital's fault they don't have the funds or room to buy more beds or more staff.

I have no argument with this at all my point is that in order to "open up" beds they are sending sick people out who have no business being moved what so ever. When my Dad was moved he went from a normal room where one day we were told that he would be in there for a while to the very next day where all of a sudden he was alright to go home. Only to be rushed back in only to be put in intensive care.

[GRUMPY]

I agree with that, except I think Grumpy was referring to SAH administration, and not front-line staff.

Sorry but I was refering to whom ever it is that deems it alright for patients to go home just before the weekend or holidays to make room for "others". From what I've seen if it is an actual docor doing it they should hand the responsibility over to a janitor because he couldn't do any worse.

[chase_me]

in the hospital count the offices that where patient rooms and you will notice that the rooms are still there just more paper pushers, the whole third floor is offices

third floor in the general is that were you mean? or the third floor in the plummer?

if you mean the general there is not many offices if any, there is Maternity, Peds, NICU and a healthcare floor.

Third floor in the plummer is also a medical type floor.

I am not sure where you get your info but you are incorrect.

Unless of course you mean the third floor at the new hospital in that case i have no idea.

[GRUMPY]

if I'm not mistaken the 3rd at the Plummer is for same day procedures on out patients. Yes there are offices there but that is where they are needed.

[EyelashExtensions]

Sorry but I was refering to whom ever it is that deems it alright for patients to go home just before the weekend or holidays to make room for "others". From what I've seen if it is an actual docor doing it they should hand the responsibility over to a janitor because he couldn't do any worse.

Isn't it the patients Dr. that o.k.s them to go home? I know when I was in the hospital it was up to the Doctor. Either the Doc in charge of my case when I came in or my own family Doc. I think the biggest problem is funding. I'm sure if the new hospital isn't enough they can always apply for more funding and expand. From what I read before they have the same amount or less beds than they do now. I know lots of people who go to the hospital when they don't need to.

[Karen-Annie]

I'm not going to disagree with you about people being sent home when they shouldn't be. But the one thing I keep pointing out is that the SAH admin. and board do NOT determine bed capacity.That is the function of the provincial government's MOHLTS....who also sets the number of nursing home/long term beds for the community.There is some hope that the LHIN system will be more responsive.....but they work with the money the province gives them for the whole region so this is something yet to be proved. Admin has a lot to answer for but designating capacity isn't one of them. The original design for the new hospital had more beds and the MOHLTS would not approve it despite the obvious need.And do you know how many years it took to get a (temporary)bump up for interim beds for ALC patients??

I can understand the theory of sending inpatients home to open up beds when a historically higher influx of patients time comes up but the ones who do the choosing need to be ABSOLUTELY sure they pick the right ones.

[chase_me]

if I'm not mistaken the 3rd at the Plummer is for same day procedures on out patients. Yes there are offices there but that is where they are needed.

i think one end of it is but there is long term beds there too i work at the hospital and service every floor (except for surgical) in both hospitals

[Giggle Squirt]

I have been through this before with my son who ws 1 month at the time of him being in the hospital. I brought him to the hospital because he he was having a reallly hard time breathing and his lungs were full of infection. They admitted him because his pulse kept dropping and his o2 levels kept falling off. he was in an isolation room and after two days of him being their and still not improving they called some code over the pa system and i asked the nurse what it was and she told me that it was a code to tell the nurses to start calling the doctors and seeing if they could discharge the patients to free up the beds. she told me to get ready to go home but my sons doctor told them to keep my son and he was their for another 3 days.

Long story short, it is up to the docs to discharge the people to free up the beds. The nurses call the doctos and the doctors give the yes or no. the nurses can't just go and draw names and say ok you you and you are going home

[yoda]

I am not trying to justify the inappropriate discharge of patients from our hospital, but i believe that we should be questioning our elected officials (MPP) about the state of our healthcare. The MOHLTC should be held responsible for some of the problem.

I do know that the MOHLTC determines what length of stay a patient should have and what they will reimburse the facility for. They determine this based on an average of ALL hospitals in Ontario, the majority are in S. Ontario where they have Dr.'s, specialists and equipment 24/7. We could hardly compete.

If a client stays in hospital 3 days and the Ministry determines that it should have been 2 days, our hospital is out the money for the 3rd day (no wonder we are in deficit).

The pressure that our hospital & physicians are under is tremendous and eventually something is going crumble. We are in a lose lose situation.

[IMHO]

We need to see heads roll at our hospitals. Too many high paying jobs that do not relate to quality patient care. Dr. Walde's decsion should wake us up to demand change.

[KDawg]

I'm not going to disagree with you about people being sent home when they shouldn't be. But the one thing I keep pointing out is that the SAH admin. and board do NOT determine bed capacity.That is the function of the provincial government's MOHLTS....who also sets the number of nursing home/long term beds for the community.

I can understand the theory of sending inpatients home to open up beds when a historically higher influx of patients time comes up but the ones who do the choosing need to be ABSOLUTELY sure they pick the right ones.

The MOH-LTC could free up hospital beds here in Northern Ontario if they would create more nursing home beds (which are also needed).

Yet they don't.

[Karen-Annie]

The MOH-LTC could free up hospital beds here in Northern Ontario if they would create more nursing home beds (which are also needed).

Yet they don't.

EXACTLY. This has been a battle for years. Despite all the stats that show that the Soo.....and most of Northern Ontario.....is older with more health problems and fewer communityhealth resources, they(the MOHLTC) use the same formula for determining # of LTC/nursing home beds required as they use in southern Ontario. Don't bother trying to get action from our MPP.....he just regurgitates all the figures about the money he and McGuinty have pumped into the Soo's health care system and NEVER answers the hard questions about the obvious need for more(LOTS more) nursing home/LTC beds.Yada,yada,yada,blah,blah,blah...... we still don't have enough of those desparately needed spots. If we DID have those bed, the need to discharge patients too soon would drop to virtually nil.