CHEO hiring new staff amid 'incredibly difficult' capacity challenges

Ottawa's children's hospital is hiring more staff and launching new online tools to tackle capacity challenges they say they've never seen in their 48-year history. 

In a press release, CHEO said they are at 124 per cent capacity in their in-patient medical units amid a "major surge" of patients needing both mental health and critical care, and that all budgeted beds are full.

Some patients admitted to the emergency department are waiting up to 30 to 48 hours for a bed, the hospital said.

That's made April to September 2022 the busiest six-month period ever for the department.

"It's been an incredibly difficult period," said Tammy DeGiovanni, CHEO's senior vice-president of clinical services.

Several non-urgent and elective surgeries have also been cancelled due to the shortage of available beds and staff, DeGiovanni said. 

The number of patients has also risen due to an unusually prolonged viral season, she added.

"Our intensive care unit is bulging ... we have kids going across the province just to get an intensive care bed," DeGiovanni said.

$1.2M in funding

With the help of a $1.2-million infusion from Ontario Health and CHEO sponsors, DeGiovanni said the hospital is implementing measures in an attempt to ensure timely care.

CHEO is hiring more than a dozen positions in the emergency department, while also unveiling new online tools and improving the modelling on their website for wait times.

Without timely, quality health care, children can face huge negative impacts, she said.

"It means that they're not meeting their developmental milestones. They're falling behind in school, they're falling behind their peers," she said.

"From a social perspective, there are just so many more risks for having those long delays."

The hospital is also moving more medical professionals to frontline roles, adding shifts and embedding specialists with clinical care teams to ensure patients are discharged sooner.

DeGiovanni said CHEO is also talking to Ontario Health about setting up "an integrated system" that links primary care with acute care and other medical services that children need — although that's likely a long-term solution.

"We let kids go until there's an acute problem, and then we swoop in to try and solve the problem," she said, "So it's to get ahead of that."

For now, DeGiovanni suggests parents may want to explore other options like taking their child to a family doctor, care clinic or walk-in clinic  to avoid the frustrations of long wait times.