Anne-Marie Brydge was excited to welcome media into her new home Wednesday morning to show what PHARA (Physically Handicapped Adults’ Rehabilitation Association—Nipising-Parry Sound) would be providing for her.
“I like living here because it has what I need,” Brydge said of stay at the transition home. “The people are nice here and I’m very comfortable here.”
The North East Local Health Integration Network (NE LHIN) announced a new investment that will help more seniors get the care they need in the community after a hospital stay. $230,000 in new funding has been provided to PHARA by the NE LHIN to staff an additional two beds in its Enhanced Congregate Care Unit—which provides 24-hour transitional support to people needing extra care as they transition out of North Bay Regional Health Centre (NBRHC) to their next home care setting.
“This place is whatever people need in order to live independently,” Alice Radely, Executive Director of PHARA said. “It’s a 90 program in partnership with the hospital to help people transition. Our staff are here to assist them with things like meals, social activities and anything to keep them comfortable.”
This investment will help in reducing PHARA’s wait list for the program while assisting NBRHC in transferring alternate level of care patients out of the hospital. Paul Heinrich, President, and CEO of NBRHC said approximately 15 per cent of all our hospital beds across the Province are occupied by somebody who should in a different level of care.
“As a system, we have to do a better job at finding the right places,” he said. “We are trying to customize the support. When there is 15 per cent of hospital beds designed for advanced level care when they get locked up, it causes a real access problem for other patients trying to get into the hospital and that is a problem we have to manage as a community and as partners.”
Radely also felt that the partnership with the NBRHC was an important one that has benefited the community over time.
“The program has seen such growth and we now have two units like this plus a transition home—which really makes the patients feel like at home,” she said.
Brydge said her experience there has been different from the hospital, which had so many more people, and she appreciates the newfound privacy and ability to do what she’d like while still having the comfort of knowing she has the care should she need it.
Louise Paquette CEO of the NE LHIN (left) and Anne-Marie Brydge talk about Brydge's positive experience in PHARA's Enhanced Congregate Care Unit, which has received new funding from the NE LHIN Wednesday.
