Grand River Hospital ICU ‘teetering on maximum capacity’ for days
Posted Dec 22, 2020 08:00:00 PM.
Projections for Ontario's hospitals are grim for the coming days, especially surrounding Intensive Care Units (ICU).
In every scenario, provincial capacity is expected to be exceeded by the end of the month, even without growth.
In Waterloo Region, a reproductive rate of 1.1 means that growth is expected in the coming days, even as local ICUs have been nearly full as of late.
At Grand River Hospital, 19 patients were hospitalized due to COVID-19 as of Tuesday.
“Our ICU has been teetering on maximum capacity, to the point where we've actually established plans now of where we would be able to encroach into to add more capacity to provide ventilation to more people if needed, because of those projections,” said Ron Gagnon, President and CEO at Grand River Hospital. “We have reduced our surgeries as well to create space, and to deal with some of the outbreaks that we've been dealing with internally.”
Gagnon stressed that the hospital is still providing safe, quality care, and those who need it should still come to the hospital.
He also noted that, ten months into a global pandemic, his staff are tired.
“They've been at this for a long time. We knew at the beginning it would be a marathon, still, they are tired. They see the impact of this virus in people every single day. That wears on them even more than the hours they put in, and those hours are extremely long.”
While a coming vaccine provides hope, the biggest encouragement that the public can give healthcare workers is to heed public health advice.
Medical Officer of Health Dr. Hsiu-Li Wang called on the public to put in lockdown measures starting Tuesday, rather than waiting for Saturday's “official start date,” and to stop socializing with anyone outside of your household.
