This is an opinion column by Niagara Health Communications Specialist Michelle Pressé, published in the St. Catharines Standard, Niagara Falls Review and Welland Tribune.
Addiction. Cancer care. Organ and tissue donation.
These topics aren’t usually top of mind until they have to be.
Whether you’re the patient, the loved one or an acquaintance, the ripple effect of someone in need of hospital care reverberates through our lives.
At Niagara Health, we often see people on the worst days of their lives — when they are hurt, sick or at the bedside of a loved one. But, sometimes it’s on their best days — when they welcome new life into the world or ring the bell to celebrate being cancer-free.
The stories of the people who come through our doors, and those waiting within to help, are the inspiration behind a new monthly column that will pull back the curtain on Niagara Health’s operations.
Each column will feature a different area of hospital care, with the experiences of patients or their loved ones as the focus and in their own words. In addition, our staff and physicians’ voices will also be heard as they share what it’s like to provide care for Niagara residents every day.
The past few years have brought unparalleled challenges to our hospital and our community. Some of the challenges our team faced included concerns about personal protective equipment shortages, preventing and managing outbreaks, new variants and waves of COVID-19, staff and physician shortages, and consistently adapting to meet the needs of patients.
As a multi-site hospital organization serving more than 450,000 residents across the Niagara region, Niagara Health is committed to helping ensure every person gets to live every day in the best health possible. We operate one of the busiest emergency medicine programs in Ontario and have several regional centres of excellence. And, with the third-oldest population in Canada, we are increasing our focus on care for older adults.
Niagara Health is committed to transparency and providing the best possible care, which includes giving me the privilege of giving readers a glimpse behind the scenes of our hospitals.
My hope is that by telling the stories of those cared for, and those who care at Niagara Health, we can provide an inside look and detangle some of the complexities of health care.
