As cases of COVID-19 continue to rise across the province, the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance is working with other health care agencies in the region to brace for an influx of patients needing care.
CEO Lori Marshall says in particular, the hospital has been keeping in touch with officials at Windsor Regional Hospital in the event they need a helping hand.
“We did get an allocation of 20 beds added to CKHA during the flu and COVID season, those 20 beds are regional in nature, it isn’t just for Chatham-Kent,” Marshall says. “Last week when (Windsor Regional Hospital) was having their difficulties with their outbreak and they were needing to close a number of beds, we were in active conversation about whether or not we were going to need to help them out.”
No patients have been transferred between regions at this point, but Marshall says they’re ready to help should the need arise.
“It was a good opportunity for us to basically do like a table top exercise so we all understood how, in the event this needs to occur, because we don’t know what the future will bring,” Marshall explains. “It could mean transfers from Chatham to elsewhere if we were in difficulty. It’s important for us to understand what processes we would take in order to transfer patients back and forth.”
As of Wednesday morning, there are three patients being treated for COVID-19 symptoms at CKHA, two of whom are in the ICU and one on a ventilator.