$2.75M to help Manitoba hospitals discharge more patients on weekends will improve ER waits, province says

Hospitals and health centres in Winnipeg, Brandon and Selkirk will get $2.75 million for staff needed to discharge patients with complex needs seven days a week instead of five, a step the provincial government says will reduce wait times at emergency departments.

The money will go toward hiring more physiotherapists, occupational therapists, social workers, health-care aides and hospital case co-ordinators at Winnipeg hospitals, the Selkirk Regional Health Centre and the Brandon Regional Health Centre.

Patient discharges already occur seven days a week, but patients who need certain supports, such as a social worker, physiotherapy or other rehabilitation outside of hospital, can't be released from hospital on the weekend because the necessary staff isn't available, a provincial spokesperson said.

When certain patients can't be discharged on the weekend, they end up "stuck in the health system because we don't have those allied health supports or community services supports in the community,"saidDr. Shawn Young,chief operating officer for Winnipeg's Health Sciences Centre.

That prevents hospitals from admitting other patients who need help, increasingER wait times, he said ata news conference Friday.

"It's backed up into the acute care system."

Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara says enabling hospitals to discharge these patients seven days a week will help improve patient flow and ultimately reduce overcrowding and higher wait times in emergency rooms.

"We knowthat folks don't just get sick from Monday to Friday. We know that the health-care system should reflect that very important reality," Asagwara said at the news conference, pointing out that other major cities in Canada discharge patients seven days a week.

Improving patient outcomes

Having added supports available to people over the weekend should also improve patient outcomes, Asagwara said, because people won't have to pause physiotherapy or other rehabilitation care due to a lack of available staff.

"By the time Monday rollsaround,allied health-care folks and others are catching up on what's happened on the weekend.You know, maybe your grandmother isn't getting that care again until late Monday or even Tuesday," they said.

"That really impacts people's ability to have good, improved health-care outcomes, and quite frankly to get home in a time that makes sense."

Recruitment efforts are expected to begin immediately, Asagwara said.

The move is a good start, and long overdue, said Jason Linklater, the president of Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals, aunion that represents workers in more than 190 health-care roles, includingsocial workers, pharmacists, physiotherapists and dietitians, among workers in many other professions.

'More staffing' needed

"Frontline professionals have been saying they can help reduce ER congestion, but we need more staffing to support it," he said, adding that this plan has been suggested before.

"This has been sitting there for a while. As to why it was never implemented, I can't tell you because I don't know."

A provincial spokesperson said Manitoba plans to hire least 74 more allied health professionals, with the majority being rehabilitationassistants, to help hospitals discharge patients on weekends.

Recruiting some of those professionals will be harder than others because you have to go out of province to train for certain professions, such as speech language therapy,Linklater said.

"So getting those people back is an entirely different process than getting people back who are graduating yearly from university here," he said.