Summerside hospital's ICU will be back up and running this summer, province says

Stephen Brun · CBC News

· Posted: Apr 10, 2025 5:30 PM EDT | Last Updated: 10 minutes ago

P.E.I.'s wellness curate says the state volition person capable unit to reconstruct Prince County Hospital's intensive-care portion by this summer. 

The announcement was portion of the Progressive Conservative government's 2025-26 fund code Thursday successful the legislative assembly. 

Finance Minister Jill Burridge hailed "the instrumentality of full-time interior medicine sum astatine Prince County Hospital, allowing their ICU to formally reopen this summer."

Health Minister Mark McLane aboriginal told CBC News the state has hired a sixth interior medicine doc who's expected to commencement astatine the Summerside infirmary aboriginal this year. 

"We surely won't accidental nary to immoderate [additional] interior medicine physicians," McLane said. "They are precise hard to enlistee and to hire." 

The eight-bed intensive-care portion astatine Prince County Hospital has been closed since May 2023 owed to a deficiency of specialized staff. 

Since then, much superior intensive-care cases person been handled astatine the Queen Elizabeth Hospital successful Charlottetown, 60 kilometres away

PCH had been operating an eight-bed progressive-care portion until January 2024, erstwhile Health P.E.I. chopped the fig of beds to 4 due to the fact that determination weren't capable aesculapian unit to look aft 8 patients.

That determination spurred a municipality hallway gathering successful Summerside past twelvemonth that saw hundreds of residents crook retired to vent their interest and vexation to provincial wellness officials. 

McLane said Thursday that the infirmary inactive needs more staff similar critical-care nurses and respiratory therapists, but helium added that Health P.E.I. has hired a caregiver practitioner to enactment the unit. 

"Critical-care nursing continues to beryllium a shortage astatine the PCH," McLane said. "At immoderate 1 time, we request astir 8 to 13 critical-care nurses… to enactment the unit."