CEO Scott Pearman says there are cases where families are “just not moving a patient”
A “material” proportion of approximately 40 patients who are fit for discharge from the hospital are being left there by their families without good reason.
Bermuda Hospitals Board CEO and President, Scott Pearman, today affirmed that “it’s a real issue”, and says it will require “a suite of solutions”.
Mr Pearman also added that he is “personally aware” of cases where families are “just not moving a patient”.
This comes after Health Minister Kim Wilson told Bermuda Broadcasting that Government is exploring financial penalties for ‘bed-blocking’.
The Minister emphasised that such measures would not be aimed at families whose home situation or a shortage of community care makes them unable to bring their family member home. Any penalty would be aimed specifically at those who simply refuse to bring a family member home.
Scott Pearman also made the point that no case is the same.
He said, “if we have 40 persons in the hospital, there are 40 different family and life stories… some which can be supported by the community, some where persons may not be working with the health system to get a best outcome. So it’s about striking that balance.”
At one point in March, the hospital was put on its second-highest alert level as staff struggled to accommodate an unprecedented 34 patients stuck in Emergency waiting for beds.
Some of the fit-for-discharge patients were doubled up in acute care rooms to compensate.
Dr. Anna Neilson-Williams, Acting Chief of Staff at BHB, told Bermuda Broadcasting they would still have had enough beds to meet the demand – if there was sufficient care available outside of the hospital for all of the fit-for-discharge patients.
Today, BHB CEO Scott Pearman spoke at Hamilton Rotary Club, providing some background on the recent capacity issues, while highlighting other hospital programmes and the implementation of their electronic medical record system, or PEARL.
He reiterated that current capacity issues are also the result of Hurricane Gonzalo damaging the continuing care unit in 2014 – only a month after the new wing was opened.
Patients from the evacuated CCU were eventually settled on the third and fourth floors of the new wing – floors that were originally planned to house rehab and step-down units.
Mr Pearman said, “when the hurricane destroyed that building, we had to evacuate everyone… ten years later, the community has forgotten that we had a continuing care building. That building is no longer there. And so now we are at over 100% capacity.”
We asked Mr Pearman if, since the damage happened immediately after money had been spent on opening the new wing, the hospital was financially unable to replace the lost capacity.
He answered, “in that regard, it’s not ‘we’ as far as the Bermuda Hospitals Board – it’s ‘we’ as far as a jurisdiction, as Bermuda. If we go back to 2014, we were still struggling to overcome the global recession… You move on to 2017, 2019, even today… we are still struggling as a jurisdiction to have capital to invest in infrastructure.”
“What the hospital, and our hospital staff, is doing is trying to manage the best that we can within the footprint that we have.”
The question currently being considered, Mr Pearman says, is how to maximise the capacity that is already in the system – both inside and outside of the hospital
