LHSC prepares to transfer patients to other hospitals as Omicron-fueled capacity crunch worsens
Stretched to its limit, the London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) plans to ask smaller hospitals in the region for relief.
“The hospitals are at the maximal stress right now,” explains LHSC’s Dr. Adam Dukelow. “Hopefully the maximum stress.”
LHSC operates both University Hospital and Victoria Hospital in London.
Currently caring for 161 COVID patients, 24 in critical care, LHSC will create space by transferring patients to other hospitals in order to preserve its ability to offer highly specialized cardiac and neuroscience care.
“In the next 24 hours some patients will move, likely less than 10, but enough to create space,” says Dr. Dukelow.
Either COVID patients, or patients admitted for other reasons, will be transferred based on what other hospitals are able to accept.
On Tuesday, the Middlesex-London Health Unit indicated that the Omicron wave appears to be plateauing.
Corresponding hospitalizations can peak more than a week after spread begins to wane in the community.
During previous waves of the COVID-19 pandemic, hospitals in St. Thomas, Strathroy, Stratford, and Hanover have been among those to accept patients from LHSC, but now they’re also stretched thin and facing uncertainty about the number of patients that will be admitted in the coming days.
“It’s a matter of who is stretched more,” admits Dr. Dukelow. “Some hospitals may have just one or two beds that they can help us out with, it’s a matter of maximizing capacity in the system.”
A temporary field hospital inside the Agriplex had 144 beds, but after sitting idle for a year and a half it was decommissioned in early December.
Dr. Dukelow explains that over the course of the pandemic other strategies, like transferring patients between hospitals, developed as better options to address a capacity crunch.
He believes the Agriplex site wouldn’t have been a solution to the current situation.
“We can actually stand up more beds within the walls of the London Health Sciences Centre that have all the equipment, like oxygen, of a standard hospital.”
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
'It could be catastrophic': Woman says natural supplement contained hidden painkiller drug
A Manitoba woman thought she found a miracle natural supplement, but said a hidden ingredient wreaked havoc on her health.
After hearing thousands of last words, this hospital chaplain has advice for the living
Hospital chaplain J.S. Park opens up about death, grief and hearing thousands of last words, and shares his advice for the living.
WHO likely to issue wider alert on contaminated cough syrup
The World Health Organization is likely to issue a wider warning about contaminated Johnson and Johnson-made children's cough syrup found in Nigeria last week, it said in an email.
WATCH Video shows dramatic police takedown of carjacking suspects chased through parking lot north of Toronto
Police have released video footage of a dramatic takedown of a group of teens wanted in connection with an attempted carjacking in Markham earlier this month.
Canada, G7 urge 'all parties' to de-escalate in growing Mideast conflict
Canada called for 'all parties' to de-escalate rising tensions in the Mideast following an apparent Israeli drone attack against Iran overnight.
'It was all my savings': Ontario woman loses $15K to fake Walmart job scam
A woman who recently moved to Canada from India was searching for a job when she got caught in an online job scam and lost $15,000.
Families to receive Canada Child Benefit payment on Friday
More money will land in the pockets of some Canadian families on Friday for the latest Canada Child Benefit installment.
After COVID, WHO defines disease spread 'through air'
The World Health Organization and around 500 experts have agreed for the first time on what it means for a disease to spread through the air, in a bid to avoid the confusion early in the COVID-19 pandemic that some scientists have said cost lives.
American millionaire Jonathan Lehrer denied bail after being charged with killing Canadian couple
American millionaire Jonathan Lehrer, one of two men charged in the killings of a Canadian couple in Dominica, has been denied bail.