Latest news with #TimminsHospital
CBC
12-06-2025
- Health
- CBC
Family who lost their baby donates a cuddle cot to Timmins hospital to give other families more time to grieve
Social Sharing Sheelah Carbonneau and Justin McCarthy of Timmins had precious few moments with their son Felix. He died two years ago, just hours after he was born. "There's nothing else more important than time," Carbonneau said. "For example, I never dressed him in the clothes that I brought him to bring him home from the hospital. And I think I would have liked to have had him in that outfit." She later found out about a device called a cuddle cot. It's a cooling system for an infant who has died to be placed into and it preserves the infant's body for up to 24 hours so families can have an extra day to say goodbye. "I just thought of it immediately as an opportunity to give families time," said Carbonneau. "Especially after the trauma of childbirth, and then the emotions of welcoming your child and then saying goodbye to your child, there's nothing like having a little bit of time to process and to be able to decide how you want to say goodbye and how you want to honour your baby." Carbonneau reached out to the Timmins and District Hospital Foundation and asked if the hospital was interested in having a cuddle cot, and staff said they would love to have one but it wasn't currently listed as a priority item. She decided to buy one for $3,000 and give it to the hospital. "We're very fortunate to have it," said Alexander Langevin, manager of the maternal child program at Timmins and District Hospital. Langevin said the hospital had been reviewing different processes and options for grieving families in recent years and acknowledged a cuddle cot would be a useful device to have. He confirmed that due to other equipment needs at the hospital, the cuddle cot was not a top priority item, however, they are grateful to have one now. "The cuddle cot really fit the bill for everything we required," said Langevin. "Not hoping to use it, but we understand the reality that it will happen and at least that way we could comfort those families who may experience this in the future."
CTV News
03-06-2025
- Business
- CTV News
Study paints grim picture of worsening wait times in northern Ont. ERs
The median patient spent about five and half hours at the ER before they were discharged from HSN. A new study by the Canadian think tank MEI says new approaches are needed to deal with growing wait times at hospital emergency departments across Canada. In particular, it suggests adopting a model used in France, where separate clinics are set up to deal with emergency cases that are not life and death, such as bone fractures, sprains and serious flu cases. The study looked at the median times it takes patients to be assessed by a physician, as well as how long people spend in the ER, from the time they arrive until they are discharged. Timmins hospital to benefit from new lottery Included was data from hospitals in northeastern Ontario, where Health Sciences North in Greater Sudbury reported the longest waits. The median patient spent about 5 ½ hours at the ER before they were discharged from HSN. Results from other major hospitals in the northeast include three hours, 45 minutes at Timmins & District Hospital; four hours, 40 minutes at Sault Area Hospital; and, four hours, 56 minutes at North Bay Regional Health Centre. The study also looked at the length of time it took to get an initial assessment from a doctor in the ER. Timmins again had the shortest time – one hour, 43 minutes – followed by the Sault (one hour, 56 minutes), North Bay (two hours, 16 minutes) and Sudbury (two hours, 23 minutes). Results for all hospitals in northern Ontario – and Canada – can be found here. Krystle Wittevrongel, MEI's director of research, said in an interview that Canada's system of funneling all emergency cases to the same community emergency departments is partly to blame for the ER bottlenecks plaguing the system. Krystle Wittevrongel Krystle Wittevrongel, MEI's director of research, said Canada's system of funneling all emergency cases to the same community emergency departments is partly to blame for the ER bottlenecks plaguing the system. (Photo from video) While we do a good job of addressing critical cases as they come in, people with non-life-threatening but emergency cases are often left to wait several hours for care. One option would be to adopt a model used in France where separate, middle-emergency clinics are set up to handle serious but not life-threatening cases. The clinics are a midway point between walk-in clinics that can't handle emergency cases and the overwhelmed emergency departments at hospitals. 'We tend to see a lot of patients going to the emergency room for care that might not need to be there,' Wittevrongel said. 'They might have a more minor injury like a sprain or a strain that isn't necessarily emergency care but is a little bit much for primary care (physicians).' Middle emergency clinics She said France has had great success with this model, which is a better allocation of existing resources. Similar to walk-in clinics, the middle care centres would be publicly funded but independently run by doctors and nurses. 'Rather than being the same as an urgent care centre like the Province of Ontario currently has, it's more community-focused and so there's also more localized decision-making, (offering) more flexibility for those doctors and nurses.' She said the median length of stay in northeastern Ont. ERs is four hours, 14 minutes, which shows the differences in factors such as the number of hospital beds and staffing levels. By creating a system of middle-emergency care centres, hospitals in the north could potentially ease the demand on existing staff, making it easier to retain people. Read more on MEI's study here.
