With the current flu season expected to last even longer than usual, Chatham-Kent’s hospital is preparing for a potential influx of patients.
Caen Suni, the vice president of clinical programs and operations at the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance, said current provincial projections show an anticipated 50 per cent increase in the duration of the flu season.
As a result, Suni said preparations at CKHA are already underway to deal with a potential rise in cases of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), COVID-19 or influenza in the municipality.
“We’ve been working with our own internal team. We have our own seasonal preparedness group led by our internal leadership as well as our physician group,” he said. “We’ve hosted an internal emergency management table with a few mock scenarios just to prepare and make sure we can maintain our capacity and respond if we are seeing significant surges.”
Suni added that CKHA will be conducting an internal campaign to ensure staff have easy access to the COVID-19 vaccine and the flu shot.
“Our priority right now is to make sure we can maintain our surgical program, maintain the flow of patients into long-term care rest homes, and homes where patients can be better cared for,” said Suni.
While Chatham-Kent has not yet seen a spike in the number of flu, RSV or COVID-19 cases, Suni said other regions, such as Windsor-Essex, tend to experience increased cases prior to Chatham-Kent.
“This has been our experience the last three years and we have currently seen some uptick in those areas. So we’re expecting it to come our way at some point,” he said.
