Orangeville, ON – Headwaters Health Care Centre announced today it is relocating its complex continuing care beds from Shelburne site to Orangeville site and will be closing 13 beds across the hospital.

"Our focus is on providing safe, high quality care and maintaining current patient services. Complex continuing care patients begin as inpatients at our Orangeville site; having one hospital site will provide these patients with access to all available resources in the hospital, including emergency care, without the need for ambulance or private patient transfer service for diagnostic imaging tests or emergency medical care (in a 911 situation) as Shelburne site doesn’t have an Emergency Department," says Cholly Boland, President and CEO, Headwaters Health Care Centre.

The Orangeville site has capacity for 108 inpatient beds but only has 74 beds currently in operation. "Improvements in medical care have resulted in shorter hospital lengths of stay for patients. Creating one hospital site will allow us to care for the same number of patients with fewer beds. Having more access to resources than currently available will also improve nursing satisfaction and optimize patient care," continues Boland.

Headwaters Health Care Centre will continue to work with the Central West Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) and health care partners to develop plans to enhance Women’s and Children’s Health services, urology, oncology and rehabilitation, and to secure government approval for a future Ambulatory Care capital expansion.

Relocating and closing beds along with other cost saving initiatives will allow the hospital to achieve a savings of $1.83 million. The plan is in response to a requirement from the province of Ontario for all hospitals to submit a balanced 2010/2011 budget. The budget plan received Hospital Board of Director approval at the January Board meeting and was accepted by the Central West LHIN in early February 2010.

"We have a remarkable team of physicians and staff in our hospital who provide extremely high quality care to our patients. It was a difficult decision to make these changes because we knew some people’s jobs would be affected. We are working with the unions to reduce the number of staff affected by the layoffs," says Boland.

Hospital management is meeting with staff across the organization to outline the plan and address questions they may have. Changes will take up to six months to implement.

Several representatives from Headwaters Health Care Centre have joined the Shelburne Task Force spearheaded by the Central West LHIN to address health needs in the Shelburne area.

The public is invited to provide comments and suggestions about hospital services. Please contact Cholly Boland, President and CEO, Headwaters Health Care Centre at 519.941.2702 ext. 2200. 

About Headwaters Health Care Centre Headwaters Health Care Centre serves more than 110,000 residents in Caledon, Orangeville, Shelburne and Dufferin County. The hospital operates two sites – Headwaters Orangeville, a 74 bed acute care hospital and Headwaters Shelburne, a 26 bed complex continuing care hospital. Visit www.headwatershealth.ca.

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Ann Cain
Manager, Public Relations and Communications
Headwaters Health Care Centre
100 Rolling Hills Drive
Orangeville, ON  L9W 4X9
(519) 941-2702 ext. 2248
acain@headwatershealth.ca