The crisis continues at Bluewater Health.
“If there’s good news, it hasn’t gotten any worse,” CEO and president Mike Lapaine said Dec. 5 about the emergency room waits backlogged amid what have been record-high numbers of people waiting for discharge from hospital with nowhere to go.
“But the reality is, it’s still pretty bad.”
An extra 15 to 20 hospital beds have been opened in Sarnia to try to deal with the months-long surge in demand for care that has, recently in adults, been largely driven by the flu, Lapaine said.
COVID-19 is also still lingering, he said. Bluewater Health reported that Monday seven patients in hospital with confirmed COVID-19.
“But flu this year seems particularly virulent, and it sort of hasn’t been around the last two years with all the COVID restrictions,” Lapaine said, “so I think that’s caught everyone by surprise.”
He encouraged people to get their flu shots if they haven’t already, noting this year’s vaccine is a good match for the predominant strain.
The Sarnia-Lambton Ontario Health Team announced testing sites for COVID-19 have expanded to include assessment and treatment for patients with cold and flu symptoms.
These assessment centers at the Plympton-Wyoming Health & Wellness Centre, the Grand Bend Area Community Assessment Centre, Sarnia’s Twin Bridges Nurse Practitioner-Led Clinic and Rapids Family Health Team, and area First Nations have been rebranded COVID, cold and flu care centres.
Appointment booking details are available at lambtonpublichealth.ca/2019-novel-coronavirus/testing-criteria.
“We’re very appreciative,” Lapaine said about the move.
Waits for inpatient beds in Sarnia’s emergency room continue to periodically exceed 20 hours, he said.
“The strategy is just to try to divert as much traffic as we can away from the emergency department, and hopefully get people the care they need without actually having to access hospital services,” Lapaine said.
The number of patients waiting in hospital beds who no longer need to be there but can’t leave — termed alternate level of care patients — was 38 as of Dec. 5, he said.
The number spiked to an all-time high of about 50 not long ago, Lapaine said.
The target is the mid-20s, he said.
The slight improvement may be due to a drop in COVID-19 outbreaks in local retirement and nursing homes, he said.
When outbreaks are in effect, it means people from those homes can’t return until the outbreak is lifted, so they largely remain in hospital. That results in fewer beds for people showing up in emergency, which, in turn, means longer waits.
Public health was reporting five active outbreaks as of Nov. 30.
That tick downwards could also still be just an anomaly instead of a trend, Lapaine said.
“In two weeks, if they stay down, that’s a good sign.”
The additional beds opened in hospital and months of surge demand also meant staff working overtime, Lapaine said.
“It’s been very difficult at every level for staff, and I just hope that we can get through the rest of the flu season with everyone intact,” he said.
Normally, there’s a surge in demand at the hospital emergency room during or after Christmas holidays, he said, when other health-care providers have limited hours while seasonal gatherings contribute to viruses spreading.
“It usually takes us a month to recover from that,” Lapaine said, “so we’ll see how that goes this year.”