Wait times consistently below five hours, Sault Area Hospital says

The length of time between when patients register at Sault Area Hospital and are seen by a doctor - while still long - has improved lately, SAH says.

“There has been significant improvement over the past three months, with wait times consistently below the five-hour goal,” said Johanne Messier-Mann, SAH Quality Committee chair in a report to the hospital’s board of directors Monday.

“The addition of 16 hours of daily physician coverage, funded by the Ministry of Health, has made a notable impact,” the report states.

The hospital has secured a six-month extension for that additional funding with assessments continuing every six months.

Any funding for health care at SAH would be appreciated as Ila Watson, SAH president and CEO, told the board that nothing has changed since September when she announced the hospital foresees a deficit of $20 million for the 2024-25 fiscal year.

“We still are expecting a deficit in excess of $20 million. This could change if we get news of additional funding. We are of the understanding with Ontario Health that we might have some further news in November which would likely be specific to what funding we may be getting, but nothing is confirmed yet so we’re continuing to work with those challenges,” Watson told the board.

In other news presented at Wednesday’s meeting, the board was told patients are not waiting as long to be offloaded from ambulances.

“There has been significant progress over the last three months with results well under target,” a report stated but no specific timeframes were mentioned in regard to ambulance offload times.

However Sue Roger, SAH vice president and chief nursing executive, told the board “there’s been marked improvement since a dedicated offload nurse (was added to the emergency department team).”