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
BREAKING Honda to get up to $5B in govt help for EV battery, assembly plants
Honda is set to build an electric vehicle battery plant next to its Alliston, Ont., assembly plant, which it is retooling to produce fully electric vehicles, all part of a $15-billion project that is expected to include up to $5 billion in public money.
BREAKING New York appeals court overturns Harvey Weinstein's 2020 rape conviction from landmark #MeToo trial
New York’s highest court on Thursday overturned Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 rape conviction, finding the judge at the landmark #MeToo trial prejudiced the ex-movie mogul with improper rulings, including a decision to let women testify about allegations that weren’t part of the case.
Residents of northern Alberta First Nation told to shelter in place
Residents of John D'Or Prairie, a community on the Little Red River Cree Nation in northern Alberta, were told to take shelter Thursday morning during a police operation.
Monthly earnings rise, payroll employment falls: jobs report
The number of vacant jobs in Canada increased in February, while monthly payroll employment decreased in food services, manufacturing, and retail trade, among other sectors.
Doctors say capital gains tax changes will jeopardize their retirement. Is that true?
The Canadian Medical Association asserts the Liberals' proposed changes to capital gains taxation will put doctors' retirement savings in jeopardy, but some financial experts insist incorporated professionals are not as doomed as they say they are.
Secret $70M Lotto Max winners break their silence
During a special winner celebration near their hometown, Doug and Enid shared the story of how they discovered they were holding a Lotto Max ticket worth $70 million and how they kept this huge secret for so long.
Remains from a mother-daughter cold case were found nearly 24 years later, after a deathbed confession from the suspect
A West Virginia father is getting some sense of closure after authorities found the remains of his young daughter and her mother following a deathbed confession from the man believed to have fatally shot them nearly two decades ago.
Something in the water? Canadian family latest to spot elusive 'Loch Ness Monster'
For centuries, people have wondered what, if anything, might be lurking beneath the surface of Loch Ness in Scotland. When Canadian couple Parry Malm and Shannon Wiseman visited the Scottish highlands earlier this month with their two children, they didn’t expect to become part of the mystery.
Metro Vancouver mayors call for serial killer Robert Pickton to be denied parole
A dozen mayors from around Metro Vancouver say federal Attorney General and Justice Minister Arif Virani should deny parole for notorious B.C. serial killer Robert Pickton, and reassess the parole and sentencing system for 'prolific offenders and mass murderers.'