Glace Bay Hospital beds closed since May set to reopen

More than two dozen beds that have been vacant for more than half a year at the Glace Bay Hospital will be back in service as soon as next week as some family doctors have agreed to resume inpatient care.

Last May, some familydoctorswithdrew their servicesovera pay dispute with the province.

Doctors signed a new agreement with the province in November.

The Nova Scotia Health Authority saidit will also assign a hospitalist, a doctor who only looks after hospital patients, to Glace Bay.

There are 44 inpatient acute care beds at the hospital. Of those, between 25 and 30 were vacant because there was no inpatient coverage for them. They are now reopening. The remaining beds continued to havephysicians providing inpatient coverage.

Dr. Margaret Fraser, a doctor in Sydney and head of the Cape Breton Medical Staff Association, saidthe news comes as a relief.

She saidthe closure of the Glace Bay beds has contributed to overcrowding at the Cape Breton Regional Hospital in Sydney.

Fraser said the overcrowding has led to the cancellation of some elective surgeries because there aren'tbeds available for patients to use for recovery after surgery.

"We really have been in an urgent situation in the last few monthsand it will be good to have those rooms open again," she said.

However, Fraser said the reopening of the beds in Glace Bay will not relieve all the pressures on the emergency room in Sydney.

She said ongoing closures at several community emergency departments, including New Waterford, North Sydney, Baddeck and Glace Bay, have all led toincreased volumes of patients at the regional hospital.

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