Hôtel-Dieu Grace Healthcare (HDGH) is preparing for another busy respiratory season - but says it won’t open additional hospital beds without provincial funding. During Wednesday’s board meeting, a report was presented on how the hospital is preparing for the flu season. Ahead of the season, the hospital is reviewing bed capacity, staffing schedules, and protocols to manage potential over-occupancy while also preparing to offer annual flu and COVID-19 shots to healthcare workers and patients. Hôtel-Dieu typically opens 20 beds within their 2North Surge Unit during the busy season to help relieve pressure on Windsor Regional Hospital and Erie Shores HealthCare. However, the hospital says those beds won’t be operationalized this year unless they receive funding. It was stated during the meeting that opening the Surge Unit over the last couple of years cost the hospital nearly $2-million. The hospital is currently working to eliminate its operating deficit by March 2028 through their Hospital Sector Stabilization Plan (HSSP). Their deficit has fallen from $8.2-million in April 2025 to just over $4-million as of April 2026. Hôtel-Dieu’s Vice President of Restorative Care and Chief Nursing Executive Shannon Landry says the hospital has a number of steps it can take before reaching the point of opening additional beds. “If it starts to get a little bit busy, then we start to look at off-servicing patients, maybe putting rehab on complex medical. We look at all innovations in the organization. And then if it’s really a surge for acute care partners, then we have to start to look at where are the beds that we can utilize as kind of overflow.” She says the price tag of opening the Surge Unit is incredibly high, largely because of the additional staff needed. “This year, our HSSP planning really indicates that we can’t open those beds. It’s usually about $250,000 to $300,000 a month to open those 20 beds. And so without the funding, we can’t do that this year, but we will certainly look at all innovation and work with our acute care partners to do whatever we can to help our community and get our patients through the units.” Landry says the hospital will continue monitoring respiratory illness levels with Public Health as the season approaches. “So far at this point in time, what I have heard is that it’s going to come fast. And so we’re not going to kind of have that readiness, if you will. The respiratory season will come pretty fast and people will be coming through the hospitals. They’re not seeing that yet as of this point in time when I spoke to one of my Public Health colleagues last week.” Hôtel-Dieu has 90 rehabilitation beds and 120 funded complex medical care beds. Landry says the rehab unit currently operates at 95 per cent occupancy, but can increase to 92 patients when demand rises - bringing the hospital to about 102 per cent occupancy in that area. She adds that if they did receive provincial funding, they would open the unit if the demand is there.
