Local hospitals dealing with capacity issues as COVID-19 surges

The burden of the Omicron variant continues to weigh on the health-care system.

Local hospitals are seeing a surge of new patients and it’s forcing staff to quickly plan for more beds despite capacity concerns.

St. Mary’s General Hospital’s president weighed in on the sudden surge of COVID-19 patients that were admitted to hospital this week.

“St. Mary’s alone, we from went from six to 20 to 27 today and that’s over the course of the last five to six days, where we really see the sharp increase that we have not seen yet before,” said Lee Fairclough.

Area hospitals are bracing for more hospitalization as the pandemic continues.

“It’s really the impact of the community spread that will impact all of our environments, but I think it’s going to be higher than we have seen yet,” said Fairclough.

Current capacities at Waterloo-Wellington hospitals remain between 97 and 110 per cent for all patients, not just COVID patients.

Plans are underway to make room for more beds.

“The hospital is full and then we need to find spaces for people,” said Fairclough.

Fairclough says staff are considering transferring patients between different local hospitals as beds free up or are making room in other areas.

“We will convert areas like the recovery area, where we would normally be using for surgery, we would convert to temporary inpatient,” said Fairclough.

Staff are not ruling out meeting rooms or auditoriums for needed space.

“Those have been considered in previous plans and again it will come down to what we are able to staff and support more than the physical spaces, but all of those are all options for us, although not ideal,” she said.

It’s a difficult balancing act as staff shortages continue, but Fairclough says the quality of care is still a top priority.