THUNDER BAY - A housing service that provides affordable accommodation to patients seeking cancer treatment in Thunder Bay is now accepting other patients to make up for fluctuating vacancy rates.
The Tbaytel Tamarack House, located on the top floor of the medical building on the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre grounds, is partnering with the Wequedong Lodge to provide beds to patients that were traditionally only available to patients undergoing cancer treatment in Thunder Bay.
“We’ve always had some non-cancer patients,” said Mark Henderson, executive vice-president of patient services with the TBRHSC. “What we are proposing now is to have a formal agreement with Wequedong Lodge and when Wequedong Lodge is over capacity, which it frequently is, if we have unused capacity we will extend beds to those patients.”
Wequedong Lodge is a non-profit organization that provides accommodation and services to First Nations people accessing medical care in Thunder Bay and has 52 rooms and 110 beds.
According to Henderson, Tamarack House, which has 19 rooms and 36 beds, has a fluctuating vacancy rate that sometimes leaves the facility at half capacity.
“Occupancy varies between 50 per cent and 100 per cent,” he said. “Right now we are at a busy time of year and I don’t think there are any empty beds. At other times of the year, only half the beds will be full and we still have the operation costs and therefore by allowing extra patients to come in, we will help defray the cost of the operation.”
Many cancer-care facilities in the province have seen similar lodging houses close in recent years. Henderson said he does not want that to happen in Thunder Bay, but acknowledges that keeping Tamarack House open is a challenge.
“When the cancer programs were divested by Cancer Care Ontario to the regional hospitals in 2003, a certain amount of money was transferred and that has never been increased since,” he said. “Because of inflation, we have actually been steadily losing ground for 14 years. What we could afford 14 years ago, we can’t afford anymore.”
An extensive third-party review of the hospital’s financial situation identified the Tamarack House as an area that needed to make some changes to defray costs.
“It won’t bring us back to balance, but it will certainly be a step in the right direction,” Henderson said of opening the facility to other patients.
Tamarack House opened in 2004 and provides accommodation for people from across the region seeking cancer treatment in Thunder Bay nearly free of charge. Patients are only charged a $100 travel grant that can only be charged once in any patient’s visit. Henderson said priority will still be given to cancer-care patients at the facility.
A new, larger facility might be needed down the road, according to Henderson, if the hospital continues to expand its services, drawing more people from across the region seeking specialized medical treatment.
“I think it depends on what happens with the heart surgery program, if we start having to house a lot of heart surgery patients from the region here,” he said. “It’s a matter of ongoing discussion.”
