Southlake Regional Health Centre continues to have the highest number of hallway beds in Ontario, which underscores the pressing need for a new hospital, participants of the Newmarket hospital's virtual town hall heard last night.
As one of the largest hospitals in central Ontario region, Southlake has a staff of about 4,500 and a $500-million budget, but the hospital's outdated infrastructure makes caring for patients a challenge and there is no capacity to support growth, according to John Marshman, vice-president of capital, facilities and business development.
Just to upgrade current units to standard contemporary sizes, the hospital would require 89 per cent more physical space, and that doesn't include the increase in the number of beds required to accommodate growth, he said at the March 22 online event.
The preferred solution is to build an acute-focused facility on a new site and use the current hospital on Davis Drive as an ambulatory outpatient site, Marshman said.
He encouraged the community to write to MPPs ahead of the June election to voice their support for a new Southlake hospital.
"Spread the word. It really takes a village," he said.
Southlake president and CEO Arden Krystal provided an update on the toll of the pandemic on the hospital, its patients, physicians and employees, saying, "Our people are tired and they're worn out," but having "hope" has helped them persevere.
In the two years since the pandemic hit, close to 1,500 patients with COVID-19 were admitted to Southlake. Its emergency department treated more than 4,000 patients with COVID-19 and its assessment centre tested more than 285,000.
As a result, she said, many have waited much too long for procedures and mental health has suffered.
The staff was "really frantic" at the start of the pandemic, she said, and while the team learned to adapt every day by learning new skills and refreshing old ones, "these two years have taken its toll."
Maintaining staff morale was especially worrisome for the hospital's leadership team, Krystal said, because although health-care workers often experience a heightened response when emergencies occur — running on adrenaline — "you can only maintain that level of energy for so long, and after awhile this constant 'when is this ever going to end?' gets to you."
Krystal stressed that the pandemic is not over, but we must recover and "find some sense of normalcy."
"It's been a pretty incredible two years, it is unlike anything I've ever encountered in my 36-year career in health care and I hope it's the only pandemic I have to go through."
The community donated $2.7 million in COVID-19 relief, said president and CEO of Southlake Regional Health Centre Foundation Jennifer Klotz-Ritter.
That money went toward lifesaving equipment during the early days of the pandemic when the hospital didn't know if those items would be funded by the government, she said.
"You answered the call when (physicians) were competing with the world for those medical needs."
Klotz-Ritter talked about what initiatives like the "honk for health-care workers" parades and lawn sign campaigns meant to health-care workers, but what "resonated" most with physicians and staff, she said, was how the community "stepped up to donate, or pay for or provide just to say we care about you. "
There is a partnership between community and hospital, she said, and thanked the community for its ongoing support.