PHARA which stands for Physically Handicapped Adult Rehabilitation Association has received $230,000 from the Northeast LHIN.

The money will enable PHARA to staff an additional 2 beds at their facility on Oakwood Avenue.

CEO of the Northeast LHIN Louise Paquette says the beds will be used by people who need extra care as they go from the hospital to a long term care home.

She says the investment allows PHARA to increase their ability to accept those patients and provide care for 24 hours a day and 7 days a week.

Alice Radley, executive director of PHARA says 29 clients have used these transitional beds and they’ve saved 893 days at hospitals over time by having the patients who use those beds not at the hospital but at PHARA or eventually at long term care homes.

She says the patients who stay at PHARA usually stay for a maximum for 90 days.

Radley says the PHARA setting is more home like than a hospital.

Paul Heinrich is president of the North Bay Regional Health Centre.

He says 15 per cent of the beds at hospitals now are essentially long term care patients who don’t have a place to go and so they’re using up a bed that’s needed for other patients.

He says this partnership with the LHIN and PHARA will make a difference.