Ethical questions arise in all areas of our Hospital. Our faces of ethics feature highlights different roles/departments in our organization and how ethics is relevant to their work.

What does your department do & how is ethics relevant to you?

The Financial Services portfolio includes a number of departments, functions and services:  financial accounting, patient accounts, insurance billing, cashier office and collections, payroll and staff scheduling systems, research and business services, budget, internal audit, analytics and management reporting.   

One of the guiding principles for the Financial Services portfolio is adherence to a set of ethical standards and guidelines.  Not only does this principle include the Hospital’s policy on code of conduct but also the Chartered Professional Accountants of Ontario (CPA) Code of Professional Conduct.  The CPA code identifies five fundamental principles of ethics: professional behaviour, integrity and due care, objectivity, professional competence and confidentiality.

What ethical issues come up in your area?

Our team deals with sensitive information with the highest level of due care and confidentiality.  We conduct ourselves in a manner that will maintain the portfolio’s good reputation and comply with the laws and regulations that govern the accounting profession and Hospital.  We engage with an independent external audit firm each year to test our internal controls and validate the Hospital’s year-end financial results. We demonstrate honesty and integrity in those business and professional relationships. 

As technology, legislation and best practices change, we ensure that we stay up to date on recent developments so that we can continue to exercise sound judgement and decision making.  Our mandate includes fiscal accountability and stewardship in the protection of the Hospital’s financial resources. We believe that a critical component of trust is making unbiased and objective decisions and recommendations that protect and benefit the Hospital.   

We serve all employees, patients, families, visitors, management and governance and comply with numerous national standards and external agencies in our reporting and processes.  We are committed to excellence, quality improvement, life-long learning and the highest ethical standards.

Ethics affects us all. Anyone struggling with an ethics question can contact the Bioethicist for support or access decision-making resources on the intranet.

Bioethicist: Michelle Allain – allainm@tbh.net, Ext. 6538

Ethical questions arise in all areas of our Hospital. Our faces of ethics feature highlights different roles/departments in our organization and how ethics is relevant to their work.

What do you do & how is ethics relevant to you?

I support hyperacute and acute Stroke best practice in the Regional and local hospitals of Northwestern Ontario. Geography in Northwestern Ontario makes it challenging to build systems that get patients to the right care as fast as possible. With limited regional resources, the Northwestern Ontario Regional Stroke Network team is constantly mindful of how we collaborate with system partners. Stroke treatment is extremely time sensitive and depending on recourses, weather, patient condition we are met with ethical dilemmas on how to move patients from Regional locations or communities to stroke care.

What ethical issues come up in your area?

Ensuring patients get timely stroke care can come with large transportation costs, increase cost of diagnostic work up, transporting patients away from community or family support or removal of community ambulance for long time durations. As a Regional Network, we are consistently learning from our Regional stalk holders to customize stroke care depending on resource availability, geography and occurrence of stroke.

Ethics affects us all. Anyone struggling with an ethics question can contact the Bioethicist for support or access decision-making resources on the intranet.

Bioethicist: Michelle Allain – allainm@tbh.net, Ext. 6538

Ethical questions arise in all areas of our Hospital. Our faces of ethics feature highlights different roles/departments in our organization and how ethics is relevant to their work.

What does your department do?

The pharmacy department is responsible for supplying medications to all patient care areas in the hospital. Pharmacy can be divided in to the operational functions of drug distribution such as procuring, manufacturing, compounding, and dispensing medications as well as clinical services such as clinically reviewing every order for appropriateness, dosing and monitoring antibiotics and total parenteral nutrition, medication reconciliation, drug therapy monitoring, and adjusting doses based on renal function to name but a few.

What ethics questions come up in your area?

Various ethical issues come up in our area. Pharmacy is often seen as the ‘gatekeepers of the drug supply’. This has been especially true during the pandemic where supplies of certain medications, specifically new therapeutics for COVID-19 have been limited. Balancing individual patient needs with our responsibility to work within provincial eligibility requirements is a common resource allocation scenario.

Matters of conscience & personal choice (autonomy) also come up for us in the decision to participate in Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD). Pharmacist are involved in processing and checking the accuracy of the orders as well as dispensing the products to the physician and submitting documentation to health Canada, while technicians are involved in the physical preparation of the medications.

As health care providers who specialize in medications, substance use disorder and addictions are also a growing source of patient referrals. At times the health care system can seem set up to treat the symptom (e.g. cellulitis, sepsis, endocarditis, overdose, physical traumas) and offer little to no evidence based treatment for substance use disorder. Supporting access to comprehensive addictions medicine services and resources is a growing need in our community and advocating for these resources raises many ethical questions.

Ethics affects us all. Anyone struggling with an ethics question can contact the Bioethicist for support or access decision-making resources on the intranet.

Bioethicist: Michelle Allain – allainm@tbh.net, Ext. 6538

We’re celebrating Ethics Week (April 4-8) at Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre.

Ethics week is a chance to learn about ethics, talk about the ethical issues we face, and to raise awareness about the supports available to patients, families, staff, physicians, students, and volunteers at our Hospital.

Answer our Ethics Question of the Week (below) and quiz to be entered for a chance to win a $25 gift certificate to Goods & Co. >> https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/XLDN9CM

Ethics affects us all. Anyone struggling with an ethics question can contact Michelle Allain, Bioethicist for support by email (allainm@tbh.net) or by telephone (Ext. 6538) or access decision-making resources on the intranet.

Ethical questions arise in all areas of our Hospital. Our faces of ethics feature highlights different roles/departments in our organization and how ethics is relevant to their work.

What does your department do?

Our department cleans, sterilizes, packages, and disperses tools needed for surgeries and other procedures. We ensure that medical devices are sterile and prepared for procedures in Operating Rooms and throughout the Hospital.

What kind of ethical questions are you faced within your line of work?

Many ethical questions are considered within our department. Due to the nature of medical procedures and the requirement to be prepared for anything, medical device kits are highly stocked with supplies. We need medical professionals to have access to the tools that they may need in a procedure. Because of this, however, up to eighty percent of all tools that are sent up to the OR may never actually be used. These still need to be reprocessed. So in this way, we need to balance physician needs and ensure quick access to tools, with the environmental waste associated with tools that are not used/required for certain procedures. During the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been ethical questions related to access to PPE and the safety of re-purposing items that were not readily available at all times due to global shortages (such as N95 masks, for example). Additional ethical questions that arise for us include the utility/ease of single-use items versus repurposed items, and what to do when certain tools or implements are needed for patients, when we don’t have immediate access to them.

Ethics affects us all. Anyone struggling with an ethics question can contact the Bioethicist for support or access decision-making resources on the intranet.

Bioethicist: Michelle Allain – allainm@tbh.net, Ext. 6538

If you’re still feeling lucky from St. Paddy’s Day, test your luck in the Thunder Bay 50/50.  It’s the last day to purchase your tickets for the March draw, and the jackpot is estimated to reach close to $700,000. Tickets are on sale until 11:59 p.m. ET tonight, and can be purchased at www.thunderbay5050.ca.

“The community has been so supportive of the Thunder Bay 50/50 draw, and each month it’s amazing to see how high the jackpot has been growing,” says Glenn Craig, President and CEO of the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Foundation.  “We’ve given away over $10.5M in prize dollars and have been able to purchase millions of dollars of equipment for our Hospital.” 

Tickets for the March 2022 jackpot are now are available online only at www.thunderbay5050.ca:

• $10 for 5 numbers
• $20 for 30 numbers
• $50 for 150 numbers
• $75 for 300 numbers (Best Value)

** Tickets must be purchased by 11:59 p.m. ET on Thursday, March 24, 2022 to be eligible for the Grand Prize draw on Friday, March 25, at 11:00 a.m.  

Questions about the draw can be sent to info@thunderbay5050.ca. Ticket purchasers must be present in Ontario to purchase and 18 years old or older. The Thunder Bay 50/50 continues each month with the Grand Prize drawn on the last Friday of the month.

2022 Lottery licence RAF1222518