The Assiniboine Regional Health Authority (ARHA) has shut down 13 of 36 beds at the Neepawa Health Centre.

Penny Gilson, CEO of the ARHA said the closures will only be temporary while they review the facility.

"We are having nursing resource challenges, so we are temporarily closing some beds to do a full evaluation. We are looking at increasing staff, looking at equipment layout or other needs that are relevant at the facility," Gilson said.

The biggest concern of the ARHA is to ensure patient and staff safety.
"We are concerned about our patient and staff's safety. We want to see an effective, efficient and safe work environment, and ultimately will do the evaluation as quick as possible," Gilson said.

On average last year, only 25 beds were used at one time so Gilson said dropping 13 beds for now should not cause any problems.

"It would be very infrequent that we would have to move patients if we did not have enough beds, although I can't guarantee that this won't happen. The only cap we have as of right now with the shortage is five — for patients waiting for placement in a personal care home, or long term care," Gilson said.

Although Gilson wouldn’t pinpoint when the beds will open again and when the evaluation will be completed, she said she couldn’t articulate enough how thorough they want to be.

"Things have changed over the years for nurses. I think it's good to take a step back if you have the chance and do an evaluation. We want to also look at if everything is good in human resources and capital resources,” Gilson said.
Judy Gabler, area services manager, said that this is a very positive thing for the centre right now.

"We have been working short-staffed for so long. We were relying on our part-timers and casual positions to fill in for our term positions and such. It starts to play on them and gets very tiring. We are not cutting staff at all through this process, we are just wanting to know what this centre needs," Gabler said.

This week there will be meetings between executive management, ARHA and Neepawa Health Centre staff.

"While all of this carries on, I want everyone to now we are not shutting down anything. We will continue our active emergency department, chemotherapy, outpatient sector. We want to see a happy, healthy staff, as well as our patients well taken care of," Gabler said.