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Prince County Hospital's intensive-care unit back up and running after 2-year closure
Prince County Hospital's intensive-care unit back up and running after 2-year closure

CBC

time5 hours ago

  • Health
  • CBC

Prince County Hospital's intensive-care unit back up and running after 2-year closure

Social Sharing P.E.I.'s second-largest hospital has its intensive-care unit back after a closure that lasted more than two years. The ICU at Summerside's Prince County Hospital officially opened its doors again on Aug. 12. Since the provincial government closed the unit in May 2023 due to a lack of specialized staff, more serious intensive-care patients have been treated at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Charlottetown, more than 60 kilometres away. Johan Viljoen, Health P.E.I.'s chief medical officer, said the agency expects staffing at PCH to be more consistent. "What is really different is that the team is stable. They have stable staffing going forward right into 2026," he told CBC News. "The team has worked very hard on enhancing the skills and abilities of all team members. So they are with confidence able to provide high-level critical care." Relief for staff and patients During the closure, the ICU operated as a progressive-care unit, which could only manage patients who needed less urgent care. That meant some of the most critical patients had to be transferred to the QEH, far away from home. Lindsay Kucera, clinical lead in Prince County's ICU, said this was difficult for both patients and staff. "It's so satisfying to get to this point after such a long road, to be able to say, 'We're open and we're ready,'" Kucera said. "The community needs us. They need these services that we provide." Kucera said some PCH staff left during the shutdown because they couldn't use their specialized training. "It was tough. It was very hard to come in and not do the job that you knew you could do," she said. "I lost a lot of friends and colleagues because they moved on." WATCH | Summerside hospital's ICU back open after 2-year closure: Summerside hospital's ICU back open after 2-year closure 15 hours ago The intensive-care unit at Prince County Hospital closed in May 2023 due to a lack of specialized staff. Officials now say staffing levels are much better, and that it's great to be able to offer the higher level of care again. CBC's Laura Meader has more. While the unit has reopened, Viljoen noted there are still certain cases that will need to be transferred to QEH. "An example is when you get really ill, you will find that some of the systems shut down, for instance, your kidneys, and you may for a time need renal dialysis, and then such a patient would need to be transferred to QEH," he said. "Or if a patient has particular needs in maybe slightly advanced surgery or needs to see the neurologist, then they would need to be transferred." 'Continue to build' Dr. Tyler McDonell, medical director at PCH, said the unit's closure began when a shortage of internists made it impossible to cover medical calls. Over the past two years, the hospital and Health P.E.I. have worked to rebuild what he called the "three pillars" of ICU care: respiratory therapists, nurses and physicians. By Aug. 12, they had enough permanent and temporary staff in place to cover schedules in all three areas. "A big shout-out to the core, small group of people that stuck it out in the last two years, because that was the core that we've built around. And they stuck it out, you know, likely out of an immense sense of compassion and commitment to the community," McDonell said. "The number of people we have now is safe and sufficient to be operational here at the Prince County Hospital. That's not to say we don't need to grow. We do need to continue to build." Viljoen agreed, saying recruitment remains an ongoing effort. "We have a very steady stream of very skilled internal medicine physicians who come and do locums. But we are constantly working at recruiting individuals that will stay with us permanently," he said. "We're always looking for permanent ICU nursing staff. We're definitely always looking for physicians, and we'll never say… 'No, thank you' to an intensivist that would want to join us." Viljoen explained that an intensivist is a physician who trained primarily as an internal medicine specialist, and then went on to do a fellowship training in critical care. 'A great step forward' For Summerside Mayor Dan Kutcher, the reopening brings relief to people in the region who have waited a long time. "So many members of our community were concerned over the course of the last couple of years, and so [this is] a great step forward," he said. A town hall meeting in Summerside last year saw hundreds of residents turn out to vent their concern and frustration to provincial health officials. "Really proud that our community came together to make their voices loud and heard," Kutcher said. "People took notice, and it's glad we are where we are today." Matt MacFarlane, leader of the P.E.I. Green Party, welcomed the news but said it was government decisions that led to the unit's closure in the first place. MacFarlane, who's also the MLA for Borden-Kinkora, said problems began when two of the three ICU physicians at PCH resigned after asking for changes to improve their work-life balance. "This government refused, and those physicians had no choice but to resign, leaving the western end of P.E.I. without an ICU and only one in our entire province," he said in a statement. He also linked the issue to the recent heated dispute between the Medical Society of P.E.I. and the Department of Health and Wellness and Health P.E.I. over government benchmarks for family doctors. The dispute is now heading for mediation. "As government heads into mediation with Island family physicians, we're seeing the same top-down approach, a refusal to collaborate, and policies that push doctors away instead of keeping them here," he said.

Health P.E.I., McMaster University partner to fast-track international medical graduates
Health P.E.I., McMaster University partner to fast-track international medical graduates

CBC

time05-06-2025

  • Health
  • CBC

Health P.E.I., McMaster University partner to fast-track international medical graduates

Health P.E.I. is collaborating with McMaster University in Ontario to help fast-track foreign-trained physicians become licenced work on the Island. The province will pay for up to four seats in the university's fellowship program, which will begin training doctors with international credentials this fall. McMaster is offering a course that is split into 13 blocks, with each block lasting four weeks. One of the training blocks will take place here on P.E.I. After the physician completes the program and is qualified to work, they are expected to practise in P.E.I. for at least a year. Health P.E.I.'s interim chief medical officer, Johan Viljoen, hopes they'll stay longer. "During that rotation, it's incumbent on us to demonstrate to them that the work environment is a very supportive one," he said. "They have the infrastructure around them to be successful as physicians and... it is a welcoming community where they can see themselves and their families come to settle." P.E.I.'s health-care system has been strained in recent years. In 2024, the province was ranked last in terms of access to care. The president of the Medical Society of P.E.I. said at the time that the province needs to focus on recruiting and retaining primary health providers. 'Worthwhile investment' A single seat in the McMaster fellowship will cost the P.E.I. government about $80,000, but Viljoen said it is a good investment. "The time and effort that goes into educating a physician on any kind of level... is costly because it is being done by highly trained, highly skilled individuals and within environments that are costly to maintain," he said. "There may be a bit of a sticker shock when you hear those numbers, but in the big scheme of things, that is a very worthwhile investment." Internal medicine... are the non-surgical backbones of any health-care system. - Johan Viljoen, Health P.E.I. This will be a "first-of-its-kind" collaboration in Canada, said Haroon Yousef, who runs the hospitalist fellowship program at McMaster. The program existed before, he said, but this is the first time the university has collaborated with a government agency. "They'd graduate and then we kind of scramble and see if we could find a place for them to fit," Yousef said. "This is much more structured and leads them towards a pathway of independent practice." This program will see students working in hospitals, but Yousef said internal medicine goes beyond the hospital. "If this individual is so inclined, they can branch out and offer their specialist service and consultations to family physicians as well," he said. "They don't have to be limited by the hospital, but I think initially that's where things will start." Internal medicine consists of a wide range of care, said Viljoen. "Some individuals may be general internal medicine, they literally cover the spectrum — heart, lungs, kidneys, liver, brain, you name it," he said. "Then there are individuals who will choose to do another fellowship... and they will either become a cardiologist or a neurologist, etc. So internal medicine along with the family medicine specialty, those are the non-surgical backbones of any health-care system."

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