Minister of Health Dr. Duane Sands said given the many woes at the Princess Margaret Hospital (PMH), a new facility makes sense, but considering that some $100 million has been pumped into getting the Critical Care Block off the ground, a phased revamp approach would better the better solution.
Dr. Sands’ comments came yesterday morning outside of Cabinet while the minister spoke with the media about the issues that have long plagued the medical facility.
“It is too small. The footprint is not adequate to ideally manage the 55,000 to 60,000 patients per year that we see. It is now time we have a completer over haul. We combine that with the fact that we have a number of beds in the hospital that are out of commission and the fact that we don’t have beds to move admitted patients into,” he said.
“Some of them wind up into what we call virtual wards. Some of them wind up staying in the emergency room until patients are discharged. When we add to this to challenges of equipment, to issues in the operation room you understand that the final place of domicile is Accident and Emergency and the impact on waiting time is significant.”
Moreover, according to the minister of health, of those beds that are available, a certain number still remain closed because of a lack of nurses.
just this past weekend, a broken pipe in PMH’s Radiology Department led to intense flooding that malfunctioned diagnostic machines like CT scans and ultra sounds.
Consequently, there were major delays of up to 24 hours in accident and emergency services.
However, the hospital’s operation in that area returned to normal on Monday.
“Now that imaging equipment is scheduled to be phased out. We are in the process of requiring a new CAT scanner for PMH, a new MRI, additional ultra sound, and portable X-ray machines,” he said.
“When those new pieces of equipment come in, clearly we would want to know that the environment is safe. We’re going to be investing millions of dollars of people’s money then we need to know that those investments are not going to be as easily made vulnerable by some of the challenges of the existing infrastructure.”
PMH was constructed in 1952 and over its 60-plus year lifespan it’s undergone numerous renovations and expansions.
