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“We have every possible bed open and surge plans in place,” he said, which includes hospital beds “not traditionally used.”
Plans to open 120 beds at recently built Greystone Village Retirement residence near Main Street this month will reduce some of the pressure on The Ottawa Hospital, he said. Bruyère is overseeing that move. Queensway Carleton Hospital also continues to run off-site hospital wards at a hotel near the Canadian Tire Centre to reduce crowding. Even so, occupancy at both hospitals has been over 100 per cent in recent weeks.
Love said the The Ottawa Hospital is looking at other possible options if needed. He said there have been some discussions about setting up a field hospital, as some communities have done, but that isn’t being considered right now.
Meanwhile, he said, staff are working overtime to clear out surgical backlogs and maintain ongoing procedures while making sure the hospital is prepared for an increase in COVID-19 patients. The hospital is also hiring to ramp up staffing.
Love and others want to avoid seeing patients staying away from hospitals the way they did during the first wave.
“We really want the community to know that in any scenario during the second wave, we are here to support them.”
Dr. Andrew Falconer, president and CEO of Queensway Carleton, said the number of so-called ALC patients there and at other hospitals in the region is rising at an “alarming rate.” The hospital is looking at expanding the number of off-site beds it has at Fairfield Inn and Suites in Kanata and is adding beds and shifting the timing of some procedures on site.
Although the majority of those infected so far in the second wave are younger than in the first wave, Falconer warned that could soon change, which will mean more COVID-19 patients in hospitals.
How much pressure hospitals face “depends on how bad the second wave is, which is largely dependent on our citizens following public health advice,” he said.
