A unit at Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare that handled continuing care patients in need of long-term care facilities is being re-purposed as a rehabilitation unit.
Ralph Ganter with the Erie St. Clair LHIN says an extensive effort to find beds in other facilities for the former patients was successful. The unit will now expand the hospital's rehab program and handle 30 patients.
"It doesn't affect funding at all. The funding was re-purposed. It's not only beds, but they are also doing an outreach program with that," he says. "We had patients who really are best served by long-term care for the most part. There is different capacity now and it is a matter of getting people into the right capacity."
Ganter says additional assisted living beds in the area helped get the former patients into more suitable facilities.