Grey Bruce Health Services President and CEO Gary Sims believes local hospitals are ready to handle a possible influx of COVID-19 patients.
“We believe we’re well prepared, but we’re bracing for the worst,” says Sims who notes the field hospital at the Bayshore Community Centre in Owen Sound will be checked over this week to make sure it’s prepped for use if needed.
Last week, the Province directed hospitals to postpone non urgent surgeries as case numbers increase in Ontario like never before.
Sims says, “The order came out in response to the pressures that are obviously being felt around the province. Our traditional trigger point had been 460 ICU beds. It was a pressure point that notified the Province that our ICUs were going to be under pressure and as such, they should issue a lockdown and start to put more public health measures in place. Unfortunately as of this weekend, we hit just over 600 ICU COVID patients, with the prediction that by the 18th, we will hit 700,” says Sims.
Sims explains hospitals had to respond to that pressure,” The reality is, the only way we can do that is to create more ICU capacity, and to do that, we have to provide the nursing and physician support to put in place which requires us to shut down our surgical programs to pull those nurses and those staff to support that ICU structure. ”
He notes, “Locally, we believe we are well prepared. Certainly our ICU is almost full. Now we only have one bed available unless we expand our bed structure which we are prepared to do and we have a plan in place when the province is ready.”
The hospital has six ICU beds right now, (one is a pediatric bed) and during the second wave, Sims says they expanded that to ten beds for about six weeks. He adds, if they had to shut down all but emergency surgery, they could use their recovery room to expand ICU capability further.
Sims notes, the number of ICU beds depends on how many staff are available “ICU staff are highly trained as are the surgical staff. You can’t just put any nurse into that spot.”
He says the three hospital groups within the Grey Bruce region are working closely together, (Hanover, South Bruce Grey Health Centre and Grey Bruce Health Services), “We are moving patients between ourselves to try to even the pressures”
The Province has also said it will move patients from region to region if required, even without their consent. Sims notes, “Our ICU here in Owen Sound is receiving patients from outside the region.” He says COVID-19 patients from elsewhere have already been admitted in Owen Sound and there are plans to care for more in the future.
“At this point the mandate from the Ministry of Health and the public hospitals is that any ICU bed is a Provincial bed and now any medical bed is a Provincial bed,” says Sims.
So far, Sims says locally there is no remarkable surge of younger patients. “We’re fairly stable here,” say Sims but he notes, “Provincially we’re starting to see a younger group affected.”
He wants the community to know their hospitals are still there for them and to seek help if it’s needed, noting, “I have to say a very important thing that is, our emerges (emergency departments) are wide open. If you’re sick, you come to emerg. If you need an urgent or an emergent surgery, we’re still doing urgent and emergent surgeries. If you need cancer surgeries, we’re still doing cancer surgeries. We’re not stopping those at this point, we’re fully active in that way, and we’ll continue to try to do as many ambulatory services as we can that do not detract from our ability to provide our ICU services.”
Sims says those with surgeries that have been cancelled would have been contacted if their surgery date was changed. “If you haven’t’ heard any different, you’re welcome to reach out to your doctor and/or to your specialist to find out if you’re still booked to have your surgery. But any surgeries, that are being cancelled now, you will be notified in person,” says Sims.
As for the field hospital, He says at the end of wave two, there was some thought about taking it down, but that’s changed now, “We just had a conversation this morning that we have to make sure that it’s prepped and ready to go because if the ICUs get into trouble across the province it will start putting pressures on our medical beds and we’re going to need to have that as an option to fall back on. My team are now going this week to go back there and make sure everything is in place and make sure they have a plan for that transition should it have to occur,” says Sims.
Sims says hospital CEOs met with Ontario Health Officials about staffing this past weekend and notes, it’s possible staff from Grey Bruce may be called on to help out elsewhere, “We’ve been very fortunate in our area and it’s been fairly well controlled. But in other areas, they’ve been really badly hit and those hospitals that are in those areas are overrun and the staff are getting burned out quick. So they need help and if we can help out, we should, because if the table was turned and we we’re overrun we would welcome the help from somewhere else,” says Sims.
He adds, “We’re being thoughtful about our considerations about what we can, and what we can’t send to help, but at the same time we’re trying to make sure that we can still provide all the core services we need to provide.”
In the meantime, he says, “Come to emerg, we’re here to serve you it’s open 24/7 the doctors there will tell you whether you need care or not and it’s better to be safe and it’s a much greater danger to not get treated that to go to the emerg.”
