The Chatham-Kent Health Alliance is in crunch mode with an intensive care unit at full capacity.
It was announced Tuesday afternoon the Health Alliance is cancelling non-essential surgeries and procedures, effective tomorrow.
CEO Lori Marshall says there are 10 beds in the ICU, all of which are in use, and nine of those patients are on a ventilator.
“It’s important to know that is not all COVID,” Marshall says. “When we’re encouraging people to stay home, when we’re encouraging them to stay well, it is about more than COVID because we know that we need these ICU beds for other patients, whether it’s a car accident, whether it’s a heart attack, whether it’s a stroke, all of these things continue, and it this concern about us becoming overwhelmed that has lead us to this decision now.”
The hospital has secured four extra ventilators from a regional stockpile and is reallocating staff to help meet the need.
Marshall says typically, an ICU patient requires one-to-one nursing care 24 hours a day with a nurse who is specially trained on ventilator use. The decision to cancel non-essential procedures is because of the redeployment of staff to care for those high need patients.
Back in the fall, CKHA received provincial funding for 20 surge beds, which Marshall says are considered for general, medical patients. she says the funding came with the expectation the hospital would be prepared to accept regional patients, like those who are being brought in from Windsor and Essex County to help ease the burden on hospitals there.
Marshall stresses these temporary surge beds are entirely separate from the ICU situation, and accepting patients from other regions has no impact on the critical care crunch.
