Overcrowding in Brampton Hospitals to Be Addressed in Provincial Budget
Published April 27, 2017 at 5:01 pm
Earlier this week, it was reported that the woman who spent five days on a hospital bed in a hallway at Brampton Civic Hospital back in March
Earlier this week, it was reported that the woman who spent five days on a hospital bed in a hallway at Brampton Civic Hospital back in March launched a petition for more beds to accommodate patients in the hospital.
The hospital was in a state of “Code Gridlock,” (meaning it was extremely over-crowded) while Jamie-Lee Ball suffered from internal bleeding in the middle of the hospital.
While Ontario plans to spend $451 million on the new Peel Memorial Health Centre for Integrated Health and Wellness, with the budget to be delivered today and Ball’s petition in the works, Ontario’s finance minister Charles Sousa says the budget will contain funding to deal with the problem of overcrowded hospitals.
In a recent interview with The Canadian Press, Sousa spoke about Ball’s case in particular.
“We have to find a better way of dealing with that, and that’s what we’re doing in the upcoming budget,” Sousa said in the interview. “We don’t want people to be in hallways.”
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Last year alone, the hospital had 10 Code Gridlocks, and oftentimes patients being placed in hallways, boardrooms, and even cafeterias is a regular occurrence when hospitals are overcrowded.
In Ball’s online petition, she calls for action with a letter to Premier Kathleen Wynne and her Minister of Health, Dr. Eric Hoskins, saying:
“The provincial average for the number of funded beds per 1,000 people is 2.3. In Brampton, with a population of 523,900 people, based on this average there should be 1,205 funded beds available; there are currently 608 beds available at Brampton Civic. This must be corrected immediately!
The fastest way to add funded beds would be to convert some of the recently opened Peel Memorial Centre into a facility with funded beds to help with the overcrowding at Brampton Civic Hospital. The need for a second hospital for Brampton was identified in the early 1970s. Brampton has waited long enough.”
The petition aims to reach 500 signatures in support of converting some of the new Peel Memorial Centre into a facility with funded beds to relieve some of the overcrowding at Brampton Civic.
According to the Canadian Press, Sousa does plan to address the problem of patients in hospital hallways due to overcrowding in the budget, which is scheduled for delivery today..
Whether the budget will accommodate funded beds in particular is yet to be determined.
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