Province pledges to triple Grace ICU capacity

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 30/04/2023 (912 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The province is promising to nearly triple intensive-care capacity at the Grace Hospital by spending $30 million on renovations the premier said Sunday will “support a higher standard of care overall.”

Premier Heather Stefanson said her government’s contribution to an expansion of the Grace ICU is expected to add 33,000 square feet of space, add up to 20 beds to the existing 10-bed unit, and upgrade its outdated design. The $30-million in provincial funds will be combined with $5 million pledged by the Grace Hospital Foundation for capital. A total budget for the project, including ongoing operational costs, has yet to be determined. Construction is expected to begin in summer 2024. No anticipated completion date has been announced.

The project’s design, operational budget and plans to staff up the expanded ICU still have to be figured out.

“This expansion project will ensure the Grace and its dedicated health-care professionals can continue to provide the highest standard of care to more Manitobans,” Stefanson said during a news conference at Grace Hospital on Sunday afternoon. She said the funding comes as part of a commitment she made last fall to continue to collaborate with the hospital foundation after the province put $6 million toward upgraded diagnostic imaging equipment for the Grace.

“Today, it gives me great pleasure to follow through on that commitment,” Stefanson said. She cited this project as an example “Our PC government’s commitment to heal health care in Manitoba is unwavering.”

Jeff Coleman, chairman of Grace Hospital Foundation’s board of directors, said the project is the next step in transforming the Grace into a fully realized acute-care centre.

The current design of the ICU “is dated, it’s inflexible,” said Mike Nader, president and CEO of the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority.

He said the WRHA board has walked through the Grace ICU and met with staff, seeing firsthand how cramped the unit is.

“It’s outlived its useful life.”

Neither Nader nor Stefanson provided specifics when asked what plans are in place for retention and recruitment to staff up the expanded ICU. The premier referred back to the province’s $200-million health human resources action plan.

“So we’re moving in the right direction there, and significant improvements on that side of things when it comes to making sure that we’ve got the health human resources that we need,” she said. Nader said the unit’s operational needs will be worked out and an operational budget will be submitted to the health department.

“As we get closer to the completion of this greatly expanded ICU, we’ll be able to ensure that we have the people available to do the work,” he said.

Nader said an expanded ICU is a significant investment that requires adding in-patient beds elsewhere in the hospital.

“Because for every additional ICU bed that you add, you need to add downstream beds for those patients to transition (in to),” he said.

When asked if she had consulted with frontline ICU staff on this expansion, the premier said Health Minister Audrey Gordon had been “out visiting with frontline staff.” Gordon wasn’t present at Sunday’s announcement.

Over the past few months, Grace Hospital staff have been raising concerns to the provincial government about a lack of staff and a lack of hospital capacity they feared is threatening patient safety. In separate letters to the health minister, internal medicine physicians and orthopedic surgeons at the Grace have written about their urgent concerns for patients due to, respectively, a lack of resident physicians working overnight, and a lack of surgical staff resulting in too many cancellations and postponements of joint-replacement and trauma surgeries.

Asked to respond to those concerns from staff Sunday, the premier again referred to the province’s health human resources plan.

“Health care is not going to be fixed overnight. We know that there is still much more work that needs to be done, and we will continue to listen to those on the front line as we develop further actions moving forward to make sure that we reach our target of the 2,000 more health-care professionals working in the province of Manitoba,” Stefanson said, adding all provinces are dealing with the same problems. “It’s a significant challenge that we’re all facing right now, but I think we’re taking significant steps in the right direction.”

NDP leader Wab Kinew said the provincial government cut 14 per cent of ICU beds in Winnipeg just prior to the pandemic, so Manitobans “cannot trust Heather Stefanson when it comes to health care.”

Sunday’s government announcement “is an attempt to distract from their rejection of improvements to public health care requested by surgeons at the Grace Hospital. While it will take many years to fix the damage at the Grace we are committed to renewing the relationship with front line health care workers to get the job done,” Kinew stated.

Ten orthopedic surgeons — the full complement of those surgeons at the Grace — signed a letter to the health minister in November, saying there had been no action on their funding proposal to improve surgical wait times. The NDP tabled the letter with redacted signatures in Question Period at the legislature in late April, and Gordon responded by doubting the authenticity of the letter.

Manitoba’s ICUs were pushed beyond their limits at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, with demand exceeding capacity during the pandemic’s third wave in spring 2021.

katie.may@winnipegfreepress.com