Waterloo region hospital ICUs near capacity as 1st external patients arrive

Waterloo region's network of hospitals have started to receive patients from across the province following an emergency order that allows hospitals to transfer patients without their consent if those facilities are in danger of being overwhelmed.

Lee Fairclough, president of St. Mary's General Hospital and the region's hospital lead for the COVID-19 pandemic, said patients started arriving over the past few days.

"We started to receive some over the weekend and we'll continue to receive some this week but it's all dependent on our ability to receive those transfers," Fairclough told The Morning Edition's host Craig Norris.

Even as external patients start arriving, Fairclough said the region's intensive care units were already nearing capacity. 

"The most recent data, I would say we've got a range from around 75 per cent to over 90 per cent in our intensive care units in this region, and we would anticipate potentially receiving some transfers today," she said Monday morning.

On Friday the Ontario government's health agency issued two emergency orders to help hospitals cope with a surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations and intensive care admissions that is threatening the province's critical care capacity.

One order allows hospitals to transfer patients without their consent if those facilities are in danger of being overwhelmed. This is the first time such an order has been made during the pandemic. The other allows the redeployment of health-care professionals and other staff who work for the province's community care agencies to work in hospitals, the Ministry of Health said in a news release. 

Not enough capacity

She said while every effort will be made to transfer patients with their consent, being able to offer the best care may require a transfer in some cases. 

"I think for patients, and families more generally, the next little while there could be a chance at the time of their admission that you may be asked to move to another hospital," Fairclough said.

Meanwhile, effective immediately, health-care professionals and other staff with Ontario Health and Home and Community Care Support Services organizations will be provided the authority to voluntarily deploy staff, such as care coordinators, nurses, and others, to work in hospitals that are experiencing significant capacity pressures due to COVID-19.

Health minister Christine Elliott said these staff members would work primarily as ward nurses to allow nurses currently in those hospitals who have intensive care experience to move to those units. 

Fairclough said the region's health authorities are looking at all services to see where they might designate people that could be redeployed. 

"At the moment we've certainly opened up a lot of additional bed capacity in this region and so many of our staff are deployed, but there are other areas across the province that have very low rates of COVID," she said, adding that's where teams might be redeployed. 

"We've got to look at how we can support everything provincially and if that does require, at some point, that we need to redeploy team members that we can free up then we'll do our part."

The province's health agency has also told hospitals across most of Ontario to stop performing all but emergency and life-saving surgeries because of the growing caseload of COVID-19 patients.

Fairclough is assuring people in the region who need urgent or emergent care that they can still go to their nearest hospital since those services will not be interrupted.

Also unaffected is the care provided by inpatient mental health units.

"At the moment I would say that we won't be reducing our services, particularly for inpatient mental health services," Fairclough said.

"We're actually seeing an increase in demand for those services at the moment."