Another death in Rosslyn outbreak
Hamilton’s health-care system shows signs of strain recording first Code Zero during the pandemic
Hamilton’s health-care system is starting to show signs of strain for the first time during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The city had its first Code Zero — when one or fewer ambulances are available to answer calls — since Feb. 24 for two hours on Friday night.
The occupancy rate at Hamilton Health Sciences has crept up to 88 per cent, which is above the province’s threshold of 85 per cent to start elective procedures again. Hamilton’s hospitals are hoping to slowly start bringing back postponed care this week.
Meanwhile, the province is holding off on plans to increase the size of gatherings, keeping the number to five. The health minister says the hesitation is due to high numbers of people congregating over the warm weekend, as well as a small surge of cases attributed to Mother’s Day visits.
Premier Doug Ford said the climbing numbers have made him “gun shy” about easing up more restrictions and he told anyone who was in a large gathering over the weekend to go get a COVID-19 test.
“We didn’t see the same egregious examples that other communities saw,” Paul Johnson, director of Hamilton’s Emergency Operations Centre, said about the weekend.
But he did note a “fair bit of damage” to the barricades in front of the escarpment stairs, emphasizing they are closed — along with sports fields, park benches, playground equipment and city waterfalls.
“We’ve seen the illness and deaths that occur from this,” he said. “You need to stay physically separated.”
The toll the virus can take was painfully clear Monday as another resident died in the outbreak at Rosslyn Retirement Residence, bringing Hamilton’s death toll to 33.
Lionel LeCouter died Monday morning, reports the family of the 85-year-old great-greatgrandfather, who said his goodbyes last week from a hospital bed via video chat.
Seven seniors have now died in the outbreak that saw 64 residents and 20 staff infected in under a week. The retirement home on King Street East had to be evacuated on May 15 and temporarily shut down. Two of the deaths from the Rosslyn were reported over the weekend, including an 84year-old man who died May 20 and a 79-year-old woman who died May 22.
LeCouter was already in hospital receiving palliative care at the time of the evacuation, after being admitted to St. Joseph’s Healthcare on May 11 and testing positive May 12. He had a number of health conditions, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), before contracting the virus.
His family says he lived a long, full and independent life. He has five children, dozens of grandchildren and greatgrandchildren, and three greatgreat-grandchildren. When the family is eventually able to hold a memorial service for him, his daughter, Virginia LeCouter, expects the lineup of mourners to stretch around the block.
Hamilton had two more confirmed cases on Monday bringing the number to 640, plus seven more probable.
Halton has 619 confirmed cases, including 119 in Burlington. There was also 75 more probable cases, including 17 in Burlington.
Ontario has 25,904 cases, including 210 in Haldimand and Norfolk.
The Hamilton Paramedic Service says call volumes have started to slowly increase over the last few weeks after seeing concerning drops in the number of people seeking care during the pandemic.
But calls to 911 jumped significantly in roughly the last four days, contributing to the Code Zero on Friday from 7:55 p.m. to 10 p.m.
“I think it’s because people are starting to venture back out,” said Dave Thompson, superintendent with the paramedic service. “It appears numbers are trending upwards as people are getting back into some sort of normal routine.”
Thompson said another factor was off-load delays in the hospitals, which had disappeared during the pandemic up until now as hospitals cleared space for COVID-19 patients. “We saw a jump in numbers in our emergency department on Friday, including more ambulances than normal, when compared to numbers from before the pandemic,” St. Joseph’s Healthcare said in a statement. “Additionally, patients arriving had a higher need to be admitted to hospital for a variety of reasons separate from COVID-19.”
St. Joseph’s said the 64 patients having to be hospitalized in Hamilton after the Rosslyn was evacuated weren’t a factor in the Code Zero.
“Like all hospitals in the province, we had been preparing for this increase in volume of COVID-19 positive patients for a long time and we could manage it,” St. Joseph’s said in a statement. “Part of our planning also involved creating space for patients who are not being treated for COVID-19 and we continue to have this space available.”
Whether it will be enough for the hospitals to start up some of the postponed procedures this week remains to be seen. The hospitals need to have their readiness assessments approved by the Ontario West division of the superagency Ontario Health.
“There are a number of issues that need to be answered by each individual hospital before they are able to resume scheduled procedures,” Health Minister Christine Elliott said Friday.
Factors include the stock of personal protective equipment, number of staff redeployed to seniors’ homes and whether 15 per cent of beds can be kept open for a COVID-19 surge.
“We want to get moving with scheduled procedures,” said Elliott. “We (are) several thousand behind. I know for people waiting ... it’s an extremely difficult time.”
At the same time, the province needs to ramp-up contact tracing and testing. Ford announced significant increases to testing Monday that would see people without symptoms able to go to an assessment centre. In addition, he wants testing done in all congregate living settings, large workplaces and community hot spots.
However, Hamilton’s medical officer of health doesn’t know yet who will do the testing or when it will happen.