Two local hospitals are squeezing in extra beds and ventilators to prepare for COVID-19 hospitalizations.
Collingwood General and Marine Hospital said it is using what space exists to create additional critical care space and the hospital is working with its suppliers and the government to get equipment such as additional ventilators and a portable x-ray unit.
Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre is doing the same.
“We’re planning for the worst, but hoping for the best,” said Janice Skot, RVH president and chief administrative officer. “Our critical-care capacity could be challenged and that’s why we’re working toward doubling it in a very short while.”
RVH now operates with 15 ICU beds.
“We have a plan in place where we’re working toward doubling the number of intensive care unit beds that we can have open over the next little while,” said Skot.
Skot said the hospital is in the midst of converting two rooms in the hospital to accommodate 23 more beds, with a plan for down the road to convert another room for seven more.
In the building, Skot says the hospital has 36 ventilators, including some that are portable.
“We have also purchased more that are coming,” she said.
Skot says RVH has one of the highest alternate level of care (ALC) patient rates in the province, and last summer the hospital proposed working with IOOF Seniors Home in Barrie to transition ALC patients to their facility as a temporary, transitional solution.
An ALC patient, according to the province, is someone who is occupying an acute-care hospital bed but is not acutely ill or does not require the intensity of resources or services provided in a hospital setting. Typically, it's a patient who is waiting to be moved into a long-term care facility.
“We’ve been trying to safely relocate (ALC) patients there for some time, and in light of the COVID-19 outbreak, we are able to work with the IOOF to safely transfer 27 patients there either next week or the week after,” said Skot.
“That’s going to have a very positive impact,” she said. “It will increase capacity (here) for what we’re all planning for, which would be a more severe outbreak with more people sick with COVID-19 needing admissions.”
In Collingwood, the CGMH confirmed there are a number of staff self-isolating after returning from travel, and the hospital is managing their absence by re-deploying staff from departments where elective services and procedures have been cancelled.
- With files from Erika Engel
