April 12, 2019

Dear community members,

We want to reassure our community that there is no interruption to services at the Psychiatric Emergency Department at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton. Experienced psychiatrists will lead care. As always, we are committed to caring for our patients who are in crisis and most in need.

The Post-graduate Education Committee of McMaster University’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences has informed St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton that it has made a decision to withdraw psychiatry residents from Psychiatric Emergency Services (PES) effective Friday, April 12.

Thanks to so many of our psychiatrists, there will be no disruption in psychiatric emergency services to our patients. SJHH has a large roster of psychiatrists who are stepping in to cover for residents in our Psychiatric Emergency Services. They will be supported by the experienced clinical care team in PES.
The Post-graduate Education Committee of McMaster University’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neuroscience expressed two key concerns - the high volume of patients and, at times, safety concerns.
We know that everyone working here at St. Joe’s is committed to excellent care and a safe working environment. McMaster University and SJHH have a long history of successful partnerships and we are working together toward a swift resolution.

Keeping everyone safe is a priority at St. Joe’s. We are committed to keeping all of our staff, physicians, learners, residents, patients and visitors safe across our hospital. We have been working on improvements to meet challenges of complex issues in psychiatric emergency care and will continue to do so. We have added 24/7 security staff. To address the times when we have a high volume of patients in PES, we have identified additional interview space. This will help to reduce wait times and improve the overall efficiency of PES. We have also been experiencing increasing pressures on our beds and we would like to thank our inpatient teams for working to open beds and create capacity for transferring patients.

Improving the physical space and the environment where we care for our patients in Psychiatric Emergency Services is an ongoing focus here at SJHH. SJHH is working to expand and redevelop the Psychiatric Emergency Services space to ensure that our patients have the healthiest environment and our staff, psychiatrists and residents have the space designed for best care. We will continue to work on improvements in a more immediate manner.

Like many areas in health care, psychiatric emergency services can be challenging and require continual adjustment to best serve our patients. We face increases in demand, a growing elderly population with dementia, and difficult addiction issues.  What has not changed is that people come to St. Joe’s when they are at their most vulnerable and in crisis. As always, we serve this city and region with compassionate, expert care. We are very grateful to our staff and psychiatrists for providing this service, particularly as we face challenges. We also want to thank our partners at McMaster University for their work with us during this time.

Ms Winnie Doyle, Interim President

Dr. Maxine Lewis, Chief of Psychiatry, SJHH

Dr. Peter Bieling, Interim Vice-President Mental Health and Addictions