Chatham-Kent’s hospital is taking additional measures to cope with a surge of COVID-19 patients requiring critical care.
With the occupancy of its medical, surgical, and critical care beds sitting at more than 100 per cent, the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance said it will be redeploying staff and transferring patients to another hospital to lessen the burden.
There are currently nine patients with the virus in the hospital’s 10-bed ICU. Eight of those patients are on ventilators.
“We are at a crossroads in our community. We are experiencing, certainly, the most significant demand on hospital services that we have seen at CKHA throughout the entire pandemic,” said Lori Marshall, president and CEO of CKHA. “Clearly, this is an unsustainable position for the hospital to sit in to continue to provide the care and service to the broader community.”
The hospital said two patients with COVID-19 were transferred from CKHA to a London hospital on Tuesday to address the capacity strain on the ICU.
Also, starting on Wednesday, the province’s Chief Medical Officer of Health will reinstate Directive 2, which instructs Ontario’s hospitals to pause all non-emergent and non-urgent surgeries and procedures in order to preserve critical care and human resource capacity.
Caen Suni, CKHA’s vice president of clinical programs and operations, said CKHA will see an average of 175 surgeries and procedures rescheduled each week. Examples of these procedures include joints, gynecological procedures, tonsils, and cataracts.
However, with so many procedures put on hold, CKHA will be able to redeploy its staff to other areas of the hospital where the need is greatest, such as the ICU. This includes 14 staff members from the operating room.
Suni said this is the third or fourth time staff have been redeployed to other departments during the pandemic, which has made them more adept at providing adequate care while the hospital is overburdened.
A total of 34 patients in the hospital have been diagnosed with COVID-19 and 25 are unvaccinated, the hospital said. The average age of those affected is 69.
