One step forward: government opens public hospital beds in Windsor

The Essex St. Clair Local Health Integration Network has agreed to move up funding for twenty new complex continuing care beds at Windsor Regional Hospital to help deal with the city's hospital bed crisis.

This $2 million solution sounds better than forcing all the 'excess' Windsor patients down the highway to a Leamington for-profit retirement home, as threatened earlier.

The LHIN reports that hospital occupancy in Windsor has fallen to 100% since the bed crisis designation three weeks ago. "We ... have fewer patients waiting in emergency and fewer cancelled surgeries."

And, in not entirely unrelated news, Mississauga's two hospitals (Credit Valley and Trillium) have received more than $25 million in additional operating funding from Queen's Park to help them provide services in their recently-completed redevelopment spaces.

So, the (pre-election) hospital funding announcements continue...

dallan@cupe.ca

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