A report going forward at Tuesday night's Guelph General Hospital (GGH) Board of Directors meeting indicates a high number of children are visiting the hospital for respiratory issues compared to 2021.
According to the report, the hospital is experiencing a significant increase in the number of children presenting to the emergency department requiring admission.
“We have seen a 147 per cent increase in the number of ED visits for pediatric respiratory symptoms and [an] over 600 per cent increase in the number of children admitted,” the report says.
Data provided to CTV News from the GGH shows between April and September of 2021, the hospital saw 354 ER visits from children with respiratory issues, while April to September of 2022 saw 875 visits.
In the same time frame, acute inpatient admissions jumped from 20 in 2021 to 140 in 2022.
“During the past month we are seeing more patients with a respiratory illness such as COVID, influenza and children with RSV. RSV may present as a common cold for adults; however, for some children it can present with a severe respiratory illness,” the report says.
According to the report, hospital occupancy remains over 100 per cent with several patients in the emergency department requiring admission.
One Wellington County mother recently shared her experience with CTV News on the challenges of dealing with two kids sick with RSV.
“Because we went to Fergus, and they don’t have a pediatric ward there, they just started calling around. They called Guelph, Cambridge, Grand River – all those places first because they’re more local, but nobody had beds,” said April Blakey.
