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HHS closes WLMH obstetrics until Fall ’20 By Mike Williscraft NewsNow West Lincoln Memorial Hospital’s vaunted obstetrics ward will be closed for business for a year after Hamilton Health Sciences officials dropped that bombshell on staff last Thursday. HHS rolled out the news to senior staff and the Community advisory Committee earlier in the week before conducting a staff meeting Thursday afternoon. The closure is being dubbed a “transfer of services” for expecting moms who have a natural birth planned. Only scheduled C-sections will be permitted at WLMH. According to one staff member in the Thursday meeting, those in attendance were told there is no firm timetable bringing births back online. This is the second major service to be lost to WLMH as endoscopies were removed about 18 months ago. “Everyone is devastated. There were a lot of tears,” said one registered nurse, who spoke confidentially due to fear of reprisal. “We were told to ‘be positive and show support for HHS’.” OBS (obstetrics services) had been shut down for the last two months while some short-term renovations were completed. All was supposed to get back to normal on Monday (Sept. 30). HHS officials opted to move up a timetable for additional work but, according to Community Advisory Committee Chair Andrew Smith, their plan had one major flaw. Initially, HHS claimed to have an understanding emergency cases could be transferred to Niagara Health Systems for care. In the end, that was not the case. “Initially this seemed to be a logical solution to the facility issues but key to this strategy is the hospital’s
West Lincoln Memorial Hospital’s renovated obstetrics ward was ready for a grand reveal at a re-opening planned for Monday, but last Thurday staff were informed only scheduled C-Sections will be done in Grimsby until Fall 2020.
ability to ‘hand off’ emergencies that could develop during childbirth, if the single OR (operating room) was unavailable, to neighbouring healthcare facilities,” wrote Smith in an opinion piece for NewsNow.
“Rather than iron out the details of this hand off before moving forward with renovations, the renovations began. Now, a few days before the OB is to reopen, we have a patient care crisis on our hands.”
HHS officials see it another way. In a memo posted to its website, HHS stated its goal is “return all services to full capacity as quickly as possible.” “As these upgrades and renovations are being completed, WLMH has only one operating room (OR) available until fall 2020, resulting in the need for difficult decisions about how to organize the services that rely on that OR,” the memo reads. “The emergency department, day clinics, inpatient care and diagnostics are not affected by the renovations and continue to function while construction is happening. Further, WLMH can keep scheduling elective surgery, including elective C-sections and gynecological surgeries in the one OR.” ”However, for WLMH to be able to continue offering these services, the hospital needs to temporarily move most of its low-risk labor and deliveries to other nearby hospitals. Family doctors, midwives and obstetricians who care for patients at WLMH have designed a plan to continue providing care to their patients, which involves caring for patients at WLMH, Niagara Health and McMaster University Medical Centre (MUMC). WLMH is grateful to its system partner Niagara Health and colleagues at MUMC for maintaining the continuity of care for patients in West Niagara.” Simply, this means scheduled Csections will continue, while vaginal births will all be transferred. With only one operating room available, an emergency C-section case must get into an OR within 30 minutes, so that time frame could be jeopardized if the room was busy. The news was met with a combination of disgust, sadness and general disbelief especially since See HHS, Page 2