A step in the right
direction

Canada’s health system — one of the world’s finest —
faces some tough problems in the 1980s. Community
hospitals like Lions Gate have to finely balance the
needs of the people they serve against the funds they
are allocated by government.

Society's ever-increasing demands from medicine's
technological revolution appear to be on a collision
course with provincial governments trying to cut costs
and satisfy taxpayers. Lions Gate is in there with the
rest, wrestling with a shortfall of $2.8 million in its pro-
jected needs this year.

LGH figures show that it costs $240.77 to keep one
patient in an acute care bed for one day. For this day,
the government pays LGH $220.70. The questions of
realistic funding mechanisms continue to be much
debated by government and hospital representatives,
but until the problem is solved it makes future planning
extremely difficult for health care institutions.

Ten years ago LGH administration recognized there
would be no increase in the number of acute care beds
on the North Shore, indeed that cutbacks were more
likely. So it planned its Northern Expansion around a
concept revolutionary at the time, that of ambutatory
care. This simply means that people with medical pro-
biems could come to the hospital on a day basis — in-
finitely preferable to leaving home and family, with the
added benefit of saving hospital costs.

This approach has been working for two years and

A supplement to the North Shore News

has surpassed all expectations. Visitors from other
health care agencies in North America come to admire
LGH's facilities and the eyes of governments and -
hospitals are on this pioneering service.

A place to heal
and learn

Lions Gate is the only hospital in Canada to boast a
Medical Day Centre, designed and built for the exclusive
use of day hospital programs aimed at helping patients
with medical problems.

The centre offers space and facilities for group ses-
sions including a gymnasium that can be split into six
sections, diet kitchen, lecture room, staff offices,
minor treatment and examination centre, washrooms and
showers.

tt is separate from the main hospital! and is a pleasant
place to come for treatment. Today 11 groups use the
facilities including those suffering from neurological pro-
blems, diabetes, obesity, chronic obstructive lung
disease, heart problems, asthma and patients requiring
dietetic counselling. ;

One of the most successful and heavily subscribed is
the back program for which there is presently a two-
month waiting list. Patients may attend day or evening
sessions for a mixture of exercise therapy, education
and practical advice. As with every program, it is super-
vised by a doctor and uses the services of other health
protessionals including nurses, physiotherapists, oc-
cupational therapists, social workers and dietitians