Even as COVID numbers decline in the community, beds at the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance are near capacity.
CEO Lori Marshall says the hospital hasn’t accepted any new transfers from out of town in over a week, but recently had to send some of its own patients out of Chatham-Kent.
“Just in the last few days we actually had to transfer some patients out to Windsor Regional, given some of our high occupancy rates currently because we are pressured with some of our beds not being accessible because of our outbreak.”
The hospital is keeping a tight lid on the Medicine Unit after a COVID outbreak was declared on May 11th.
Marshall says patient transfers is becoming the norm in regional health care.
“This approach of load balancing and hospitals supporting one another across the province, and now you’re hearing about support to Manitoba as well being provided from Ontario, I thin we can anticipate this will be the future for some period of time.”
Right now the CKHA intensive care unit is at 80 capacity, while medical, surgical, and critical care beds are 88.6% full.