Children's Hospital in London, Ont., to recruit 4 new heart doctors

An all-out effort will be made in 2008 to recruit at least three new children’s heart doctors to London, the head of the city’s hospitals said.

“It is very, very important to me to sustain Children’s Hospital and therefore we are going to devote a lot of time and energy to try and make this happen,” said Cliff Nordal, president of both London Health Sciences Centre and St. Joseph’s Health Care.

Both of London’s children’s heart doctors, Dr. Dion Pepelassis and Dr. Ilan Buffo, have resigned to accept positions at Winnipeg Children’s Hospital at the end of June.

"London needs a minimum of three of the specialists to provide a sustainable service and will try to hire four by the end of 2008, " Nordal said.

“We will be looking as well at international medical graduates that are in training in Canada.”

Nordal called the loss of the two children’s heart specialists “a blip” in an otherwise successful drive to recruit health care professionals to London.

Faced with the closure of hospital beds because of a lack of nurses, London Health Sciences Centre set a target last February to hire 450 new nurses.
To date, the hospital has recruited about 340, allowing it to reopen all of the closed beds.

“We expect by the end of March we will reach our target,” Nordal said.

The closed beds contributed to extended waits for patients in the city’s emergency departments and led to the cancellation of some surgeries.

"Not all the problems will be solved with the beds reopened," Nordal said.

The hospital still has difficulties providing enough beds for acute care because 40 to 70 beds are occupied by people waiting for placement in long-term care facilities or back into the community.

The Ontario government announced it will expand the number of long-term care beds in the London area by 600, but those beds won’t be available until late 2010.

St. Joseph’s Health Care has proposed to the Health Ministry that it opens 50 beds at the Parkwood Hospital site, at least on a temporary basis, to reduce the pressure.

“That has not been approved yet, but we are hopeful that that will be considered as at least an interim step,” Nordal said.

Another challenge that will persist in the face of rising cancer rates is the wait times for cancer scans and therapies.
In the past year, the number of people receiving cancer therapy treatments at LHSC grew by 15 percent.

“It is just a burgeoning amount of care required. It spills over into surgery, it spills over into imaging and as a result those are the areas we are having our greatest wait list challenges.”

“Those will be areas we will try to tackle in the coming year, trying to get down to the provincial average where possible,” Nordal said.

Source: The London Free Press

Related article:

Two children's heart doctors for Winnipeg Regional

St. Joseph's Health Care to receive scarce medical isotope today

St. Joseph's Health Care has been promised a precious shipment of a scarce medical isotope to be received today.

The nuclear material will be used for breast cancer surgeries and bone scans for cancer.

"It's going to allow us to handle our most urgent patients," hospital spokesperson Betty Dann said last Thursday.

St. Joseph's, London Health Sciences Centre and hospitals across the region have been caught in the worldwide shortage of the medical isotope supplied from a reactor in Chalk River, ON.

The radioactive isotope is injected into a patient's vein and can be captured by a sophisticated camera.

(Read more here and here)

Hundreds of patients in the London area have had their cancer and cardiac tests rescheduled last week because the aging Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. reactor has been shut down longer than expected for maintenance.

"The partial isotope shipment expected on Monday, will allow St. Joseph's to scan eight patients," Dann said.

"If St. Joseph's patients haven't been notified their appointment has been changed, they should keep it," Dann said.

St. Thomas Elgin General Hospital usually does 10 to 15 tests a day with the isotope, plus emergency cases.

Last week, the hospital has been receiving enough for only two scans a day.

"We are able to do a dose for a patient that needs a lung scan and a dose for a patient that needs a cardiac scan each day," said Anita Grant, the hospital's director of patient care.

Meanwhile, the federal government is demanding the maker of the crucial isotopes sort out technical problems that have crippled production....................................

London Free Press

".......................................................To be continued"

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AECL blunder choked supply of key isotope

Ontario reactor shutdown forces cancellation of cancer tests worldwide

New Brunswick hospital improves bilingual service after complaint

Last week, the Saint John Regional Hospital in New Brunswick has apologized to a French-speaking couple from Campbellton in the same Provence, who filed a complaint they were not offered proper medical service in French.

The francophone couple from northern New Brunswick, Annelle and Romain Bouchard, spent 21 days at the hospital last November.

While Romain developed complications during his heart treatment and was near death, Bouchard said she wasn't able to find anyone on staff who could explain what was happening in French.

On a number of occasions, Mrs. Bouchard said she had to depend on help of family members of other patients who were bilingual, to translate for her.

Dr. Marc Pelletier, the cardiac surgeon, said the hospital is now taking necessary steps to avoid future language problems.

"We've already called back every one of our patients who is on the waiting list to identify their preferred language," Pelletier state. "This information will be listed on their charts".

He also said that the hospital is establishing a paging system that will ensure a translator is close at hand, he said.

Patients from all parts of the province who need cardiac care go to the heart center in Saint John.

"The heart centre has a mandate and a "moral obligation" to service patients in their language", Pelletier said.

Approximately 50 percent of the nurses at the hospital are certified as bilingual, he said, and several members of the staff are currently taking language training.

Pelletier said he is sorry the Bouchards had an unfortunate experience at the hospital but said it was a rare situation.

About 95 per cent of the communication with the Bouchards during their stay was in French, he said, but there were at least two situations where it was not promptly provided.

"People are trying so hard," Pelletier said, "and to have people come up to me in the hallway and say, 'You know, I really was trying. I was speaking to them in French every day. It's kind of my broken French and to have this come out, is this my fault? To explain to that nurse, 'No it's not your fault. You did a great job.'"

"Most francophone patients who are treated at the hospital leave having had a good experience," he said.

CBC