All Things COVID-19

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GLG said:
Closer to home.

Overburdened Red Deer hospital forced to airlift COVID-19 patients to Calgary, Edmonton​

Sep 15, 2021

Critically ill patients are being airlifted out of Red Deer Regional Hospital as doctors and nurses from its various departments are recruited to care for patients on ventilators due to spiking COVID-19 cases in central Alberta.

COVID hospitalizations in Red Deer have jumped 62 per cent (from 83 to 134) and ICU admissions are up 31 per cent (from 16 to 21) in the week from Sept. 7 to Sept. 14.

"Nothing like this has happened before. We're on the precipice of not being able to provide appropriate care to people," said Dr. Mike Weldon, an emergency room physician at the central Alberta hospital, which had been battling bed shortages for years prior to the pandemic.

"Over the weekend, sick patients that needed ventilators that normally would have stayed here are being shipped out to Calgary because we don't have any room left."

According to Alberta Health Services (AHS), 24 patients have been sent from the central zone to Calgary and Edmonton because of COVID capacity issues since Sept. 1.

CBC News asked AHS for a response to the situation in the facility, and while it did provide data, it has not yet provided a comment.

"The world is falling apart around these people. First they're told you have COVID … and then you're told you have COVID but you're really, really sick — you need intensive care. And then you're told you're … going to be transferred to Edmonton or Calgary," said internal medicine specialist Dr. Kym Jim.

"You see people on phones. You see people calling family. You see people trying to gather people from afar. The stress on everyone is palpable."

And it is unclear how long other hospitals will have capacity to accept Red Deer's critically ill patients.

"What is going to happen when a person comes to Red Deer and Edmonton or Calgary tells us we no longer can take your patient? Where is that patient going to go?" said Jim.

Twelve additional "surge" beds have already been added to the intensive care unit in Red Deer, doubling its size.

As of Tuesday afternoon the unit was caring for 21 COVID patients.

Patients are being double bunked in the ICU, the coronary care unit is being used as overflow, and nurses from other departments — including labour and delivery — are now treating intensive care patients.

"Would you or your loved one accept care in an ICU that was staffed by labour and delivery nurses with minimal training on looking after this level of acuity? That is triage. That is rationing care," said Weldon.

"Just because we're not shipping people out of province doesn't mean that we're not severely strained because of our capacity. In terms of the critical care that's provided, it's degraded."

'It's frightening'​

The ICU is so stretched, according to Weldon, staff in the emergency room are preparing to care for critically ill patients on ventilators, when there is nowhere else to put them.

"We're worried … that we're going to get ventilated patients in our department because that's the only other place that they can go," he said.

"It's frightening, right? I literally came from the other room … and our nurses are reviewing their training on how to work a ventilator. Like that's where we're at here."

Red Deer intensive care specialist Dr. Adam Hall said staff are working to the point of exhaustion to care for the ever-growing number of very sick and dying patients.

"We've hit the limit for what we can safely manage," said Hall. "I worry that as that system gets strained, the outcomes for patients are going to be worse."

According to Hall, patients are being kept on the regular wards longer than usual because there is no room in the ICU.

"Patients are coming in probably a little later than they would otherwise. We're trying to keep them on the floor as long as we possibly can. And once they don't require any ICU , they're going out very early, even if they are still quite ill."

AHS said patients are not currently being airlifted out of the province.

But Weldon said out-of-province transfers are likely imminent. And he believes the AHS critical triage protocol — designed to help doctors make decisions about who gets life-saving care when there aren't enough ventilators and ICU beds for everyone who needs them — will likely be invoked soon as well.

"It's almost inevitable given the trajectory of cases and the delay we know between the number of diagnosed cases and the severe outcomes when they start showing up on our doorstep," Weldon said.

"We have a choice as a province … and we've had nothing but absent leadership and, I would argue, mishandling of the entire situation."

Alberta reported 1,434 new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday, out of 11,880 tests.

Provincewide, there are 822 people being treated in hospital, 212 of whom were in intensive care beds. Of those not in ICU, 74.1 per cent were unvaccinated or partially vaccinated, as of Friday. Of those in ICU, 91.2 per cent were unvaccinated or partially vaccinated.

There are 18,265 active cases across Alberta, the highest count in the country.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/red-deer-hospital-transfers-icu-covid-1.6176605
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I see the air ambulance coming from the island over to the mainland all the time.

Is the hospital system on the island overrun and going to collapse??

perhaps covid is showing the shortcomings of our medical system.
 
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wildmanyeah said:
I see the air ambulance coming from the island over to the mainland all the time.

Is the hospital system on the island overrun and going to collapse??

perhaps covid is showing the shortcomings of our medical system.
Click to expand...

You nailed it. No one can ever talk about the "sacride" health care system in Canada. The unions and politicization of the topic shuts it down. Our federal leaders need to be addressing this. Enstead they use wedge politics to distract from the pink elephant in the room.
With out public funded / private deliverd things will only get worse.

It's appalling when 200 ICU beds in a province of 5 million is considered at its breaking point. With our health care we put a $100 bill in and receive $1.00 of service out the other end.

Just look to every other G7 nation with public health care to see how its done
 
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ILHG said:
You nailed it. No one can ever talk about the "sacride" health care system in Canada. The unions and politicization of the topic shuts it down. Our federal leaders need to be addressing this. Enstead they use wedge politics to distract from the pink elephant in the room.
With out public funded / private deliverd things will only get worse.

It's appalling when 200 ICU beds in a province of 5 million is considered at its breaking point. With our health care we put a $100 bill in and receive $1.00 of service out the other end.

Just look to every other G7 nation with public health care to see how its done
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I think you may want to find literature on the G7 ICU bed capacity numbers/100,000 population and see how they compare to Canada. Canada's numbers, sadly, are not far off their peers. Depending on which literature you believe, there should be 8-12 ICU beds/100,000 population (depending on other critical care zones including CVU's, CCU's, HAU's, etc.) For BC, there is about 340 ICU/HAU beds.

Pretty much getting what we pay for in our tax-based system. Not sure the social insurance models of many G7 countries best our overall healthcare models, either.
 
With the BCNU nurses union openly saying they are very concerned about the vaccine being mandatory, I could see a fairly large **** storm coming from the nurses fired for not complying with the vaccine mandate . If the union is willing to back the fired nurses, we are going to see a lot of expensive grievances. The next few years are going to be a great time to be a lawyer.
 
Thunder21 said:
With the BCNU nurses union openly saying they are very concerned about the vaccine being mandatory, I could see a fairly large **** storm coming from the nurses fired for not complying with the vaccine mandate . If the union is willing to back the fired nurses, we are going to see a lot of expensive grievances. The next few years are going to be a great time to be a lawyer.
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They can try BUT:
the British Columbia Workers Compensation Act requires employers in the province to maintain a safe workspace for its employees. As such, employers have a duty to “take precautions to limit the spread of infectious diseases in the workplace,” thus granting them the authority to mandate immunizations for their employees.
Basically, you’re right…lawyers will have a heyday, but the nurses and the union still won’t get anywhere with their grievance.
 
wildmanyeah said:
I see the air ambulance coming from the island over to the mainland all the time.

Is the hospital system on the island overrun and going to collapse??

perhaps covid is showing the shortcomings of our medical system.
Click to expand...
Could be that patients are being transferred to facilities with specialties we don’t have on the Island. Complex cardiac, cancer and neurological issues for example.
 
Veering completely off topic again. Keep it on track...not interested in getting into a general discussion about the healthcare system.
 
Of the 7 deaths from #COVID19 announced in BC today, one was a person in their 20s. Three people in their 20s have now died. !6 people in their 30s have died. "Long haulers" are likely in the thousands. A reminder this virus strikes all age groups
 
There were a record 43 cases in Campbell River last week and 32 in the Comox Valley, while there were two cases in the VI North and zero in the VI West local health areas.
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In the week of August 29 to Sept. 4 there were a total of 251 people admitted to hospital with COVID-19 in B.C. The most since early May. There were 109 people in Interior Health, 81 in Fraser health, 31 in VCH healthcare, 17 in Northern Health and 13 in Van Island Health.
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There were also 82 British Columbians admitted to ICU during the week of Aug. 29 to Sept. 4, again the most since early May. There were 33 admitted to ICU in Fraser health, 26 in Interior Health, 12 in VCH healthcare, 7 in Northern Health and 4 in Van Island Health.
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There were seven new deaths from Covid in B.C. in the past day, including two Islanders, bringing the average number of deaths to 4.4 a day, the highest it has been since May 22.
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Aces said:
Of the 7 deaths from #COVID19 announced in BC today, one was a person in their 20s. Three people in their 20s have now died. !6 people in their 30s have died. "Long haulers" are likely in the thousands. A reminder this virus strikes all age groups
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Twitter Publish

publish.twitter.com publish.twitter.com

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BearCove said:

I'm never said they didn't, anywhere. But it should be up to me if I want this in my body.

And it hasn't been tested, it's only been around for less than a year. There is no possible way to know any long term effects this may have on us. The fact that millions of people have decided to inject this into their bodies is not a test.
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It’s not millions as of a week and a half ago it was 5.53 BILLION doses .
 
BC considering not recommending vaccinating children under 12… will know more in a couple weeks once they assess how things are going at school. Said the goal is not to make sure kids don’t get the sniffles…

bc.ctvnews.ca

Reduced contact tracing, child vaccination debate revealed to B.C. doctors as province pushes return to normal

Public health officials have told British Columbia's family doctors and other health-care providers that contact tracing has quietly been scaled back; there’s a plan to lift the recently reintroduced mask mandate; and they may not recommend child vaccinations against COVID-19, even if vaccines...
bc.ctvnews.ca bc.ctvnews.ca
 
Alberta: It's not a Vaccine Passport it's a Restriction Exemption Program.
Call it what you like but at least it's better then what they had.
That with other restrictions may just slow things down but it maybe to little to late.
There are already many cases that are backed in.
 
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wishiniwasfishin1 said:
BC considering not recommending vaccinating children under 12… will know more in a couple weeks once they assess how things are going at school. Said the goal is not to make sure kids don’t get the sniffles…

bc.ctvnews.ca

Reduced contact tracing, child vaccination debate revealed to B.C. doctors as province pushes return to normal

Public health officials have told British Columbia's family doctors and other health-care providers that contact tracing has quietly been scaled back; there’s a plan to lift the recently reintroduced mask mandate; and they may not recommend child vaccinations against COVID-19, even if vaccines...
bc.ctvnews.ca bc.ctvnews.ca
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this is bc covid gold right her

100% this was not suppose to be released publically as that public health nurse should never of been named in the article

some DR must of been taking notes or it was recorded and released it to the media.

Dr. Reka Gustafson. Is definitely one of the more lax MHOs.
 
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wildmanyeah said:
this is bc covid gold right her

100% this was not suppose to be released publically as that public health nurse should never of been named in the article

some DR must of been taking notes or it was recorded and released it to the media.

Dr. Reka Gustafson. Is definitely one of the more lax MHOs.
Click to expand...
I watched the webinar and some of this was taken out of context. The vaccine for under 12 discussion has been mischaracterized. The take away for me was were not there yet but this is what we hope to do to get back to normal.
 
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