Thank you. I'll try to address your questions.
Hospitals are very complex and highly integrated organisms, I would say. It's amazing the extent of the just-in-time work we do with teams pulling together. Some of our surgical procedures are just one example of what it takes to deliver this, with highly specialized physicians, nurses, technicians who support various life support systems, etc.
We're the most expensive part of the health care system. It's such a valuable resource that we can't afford to waste any of it. We try to be very good stewards of the resources we receive. People are at the centre of all this. Everything we do requires people. Having a robust and appropriately skilled health care workforce is critical. This is essential to our role in the system.
We don't just look inward. You talked about rural and remote neighbourhoods. Although we're also the community hospital for the Kingston region, like many hospitals would be, we provide a wide range of extended services, including dialysis services in your community. We have satellite dialysis centres in Moose Factory at the Weeneebayko General Hospital, in James Bay. That's just one example of the complex networks. Cancer care is another one. It's a very distributed system. Although we may be the hub for a lot of these activities and the place where the most complex required care comes, we support services throughout the region.
One really good example of this is the Ontario Stroke Network, which has become a highly effective and life-changing network for patients who in the past had a very dismal prognosis in many cases. Now, because of rapid diagnosis, rapid transportation and rapid intervention, we're able to reverse the life-changing effects of strokes and really give people a much brighter outlook. That's an example of the complexity and expense of running a health care system and the role of hospitals.
In terms of interconnectedness, most hospitals are experiencing gridlock at the moment. We certainly are. This is because of increased inflow pressures to our emergency department with patients who are highly complex and critically ill, and then outflow pressures related to home and community care and long-term care, as just two examples. We've heard people talk about the HHR challenges of other sectors of the health care system, and that is having a big effect on hospitals too.
We can't just focus on one element in isolation; we have to have a system-wide look at this.