No one hospitalized for COVID-19 at PRHC
More beds occupied than earlier on in the pandemic as non-urgent surgeries and procedures resume
Peterborough Regional Health Centre has no in-patients with COVID-19 and is now starting to resume non-urgent procedures and surgeries deferred in recent months as a pandemic safety precaution.
The resumption of those services means the hospital has more beds occupied this week than it did earlier in the pandemic, said Dr. Lynn Mikula, vice-president, chief medical officer and chief of staff, in a teleconference press briefing on Tuesday.
Ninety per cent of the hospital’s beds are filled this week, she said, up from 85 per cent in previous weeks.
Mikula said the province has dictated the percentage of beds acute care hospitals can fill during the pandemic so far (some beds must be kept free to accommodate any surge of COVID patients).
In recent weeks, Mikula said hospitals were asked to operate with 85 per cent of their beds filled — but now that’s been increased to 90 per cent.
Meanwhile PRHC has been one of the first hospitals in Ontario allowed to “ramp up” nonurgent care, she said, although that process is occurring gradually.
This week PRHC is performing about 50 per cent of its normal volume of non-urgent surgeries, Mikula said, soon to increase to 75 per cent.
There’s “a whole ethical framework” to guide decisions about which patients get their surgeries first, she said.
“We’re not prioritizing certain conditions — it’s more based on the urgency of the condition, and the time people have been left waiting,” she said. Meanwhile PRHC has handed out more than 20,000 handmade masks donated by the community since early April.
“It’s astonishing generosity on the part of our community, and we’re so grateful for it,” Mikula said.
The hospital called on community members on April 4 to sew and donate handmade masks — not for health-care workers but for patients who still must visit the hospital for care, for approved visitors and for patients being discharged.
The idea was to preserve surgical masks for health care workers (which Mikula said remain in good supply this week). Donations of handmade masks are still being accepted, and the hospital is encouraging people to wash cloth masks are wear them again if they must make return visits to PRHC.
With the number of non-urgent procedures and surgeries now increasing, Mikula said the hospital has about 700 people coming through the doors daily.
Other details mentioned by Mikula for those who need to come to PRHC:
á The hospital is still restricting visitors, with some allowed on compassionate grounds or for safety reasons (some patients cannot safely come and go from the hospital unassisted).
á There’s 15 minutes of free parking in all visitor parking lots of PRHC to accommodate drivers who are dropping off or picking up patients.
á The emergency department is seeing about 195 people daily.
Cases hold steady at 93
The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Peterborough city and county, Curve Lake First Nation and Hiawatha First Nation held steady at 93 cases, Peterborough Public Health reported Tuesday afternoon.
Of the 93 cases, 87 have been resolved and there were two earlier deaths, leaving the number of active cases at four as of Tuesday afternoon.
There are no local institutional outbreaks.
The four active Peterborough cases involve a man in his 80s, a man in his 60s, a woman in her 40s who had contact with a confirmed case and a man in his 40s who had contracted it through travel, according to Public Health Ontario.
Peterborough now has a rate of 62.9 cases per 100,000 people, nearly one-quarter of the provincial average of 239 cases per 100,000 people as of Tuesday.
More than 13,150 people have now been tested locally for COVID-19 as of Tuesday. About half of them have been tested at drive-thru clinics that continue this week in the city and county.
People with symptoms need to get tested through the Peterborough Regional Health Centre assessment centre, which operates daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Call 705-876-5086 to book an appointment.
For people without symptoms who want to get tested, the drive-thru clinic at the Kinsmen Civic Centre at Sherbrooke Street and Medical Drive operates on weekdays only from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. until at least Friday.
No appointment is required but bring an Ontario health card.
One more drive-thru clinic in the county is planned for Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the Otonabee Memorial Community Centre at 24 Fourth St. in Keene.
City of Kawartha Lakes case resolved
One more case of COVID-19 in the City of Kawartha Lakes has been resolved, the Haliburton, Kawartha, Pine Ridge District Health Unit reported Tuesday afternoon. The number of confirmed cases in the jurisdiction remained at 185 on Tuesday, the health unit reported, but 162 of the cases have now been resolved. Cases Kawartha Lakes remained at 158, with 137 of them now resolved as of Monday afternoon. The health unit is also monitoring 11 people in Kawartha Lakes at high risk after being in contact with a confirmed case.