BlackburnNews.com file photo of David Wonham.BlackburnNews.com file photo of David Wonham.
Chatham

More Hospital Rehab On Weekends

The Erie St. Clair Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) is promising to do more for patients after a complaint was issued by one of its own doctors.

Dr. David Wonham, a retired Windsor physician who spent the long weekend in hospital for rehab due to a fractured hip, warned the board of directors Tuesday afternoon that most elderly patients "don't get enough physiotherapy and bedside nursing, causing their muscles to tighten up and preventing them from returning home sooner."

Dr. Wonham says "the system has become lazy and patients don't get what they need when they need it."

"These postoperative costs [were] delayed by the fact there were no rehab beds. It took nine days to get to a rehab bed and then once you get to a rehab bed they don't provide therapy all the time, they provide it during weekdays," says Wonham.

LHIN Board Chair Dr. Martin Girash agrees with Dr. Wonham and says hospitals can be a "death sentence."

Girash says "a better rehab strategy is needed" to address the gaps and is "critical to reducing patient length of stay and repeats."

Helen Johnson, the rehab care lead at the LHIN, says rehab has recently doubled to provide faster service but admits more staff and better execution of protocols is needed.

"This deconditioning we're talking about is really for anybody that goes to hospital for any reason and if they lay in bed, they can start losing independence in the ability to take care of themselves within a day," Johnson says.

Johnson says more focus is needed and admits nursing workloads and skeleton staffs may be factors in gaps experienced by patients, especially during long weekends.

"The 'Move On' protocol has an ABC categorization and it helps nurses also assess that not every patient who is admitted needs a physiotherapist to get up but sometimes the nurses don't know how to help a person if there's difficulty," says Johnson.

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