Second intensive care unit possible if pandemic worsens
Hospital ready to accept more patients from GTA after taking critically ill patients from Scarborough; plans in place to deal with possible surge here
Although Peterborough Regional Health Centre had beds available on Tuesday in the intensive care unit, one official said the hospital can add an additional, secondary ICU that would nearly double the number of beds for critically ill patients if the worsening COVID -19 pandemic brings a surge of patients from elsewhere in the province.
“We’re at a critical point in the trajectory of COVID-19 in Ontario,” said Dr. Lynn Mikula, vice-president, chief medical officer and chief of staff at PRHC, on Tuesday morning in a press briefing held by teleconference. “PRHC stands ready to respond.”
Mikula said the hospital is ready to accept critically ill patients from elsewhere in the province — some of whom may be positive for COVID-19 — and to nearly double the number of ICU beds within the hospital from 28 to 52 if needed (meaning 24 additional ICU beds).
PRHC has already received two critically ill patients last week from Scarborough, said PRHC president and CEO Dr. Peter McLaughlin at a committee meeting for city councillors on Monday evening. He said they were not positive for COVID-19, but needed critical care.
Mikula said on Tuesday the hospital must be ready to accept more such patient transfers.
Meanwhile, the hospital has 31 ventilators available and more could be obtained if needed, she said, and there’s a staffing plan that would involve reassigning workers from areas where they would ramp down services to areas of higher need.
The hospital could use the Evinrude Centre as a space to set up additional beds for patients who aren’t critically ill, she said. They could also decrease hospital occupancy at PRHC if necessary, but Mikula called that “a measure of last resort.”
While plans are in place to accommodate a surge, Mikula said Tuesday she remains concerned about hospital capacity.
“The projections generate a lot of unease in myself, and in other members of the hospital sector. We’re watching hospitals in the GTA have to ramp down surgeries now, have to conduct inter-facility transfers of patients,” she said.
“These are unprecedented things — this is not in any way a common thing. So I think we really are at a time in the pandemic where this is the most critical point. We’ve been fortunate in Peterborough — we’ve done really well. But the threat is very, very real now. So I think as individuals, and as a community and as a larger society — at every level now — we must do everything we can to get this under control.”
There have so far been 19 patients hospitalized for COVID-19 at PRHC through the pandemic, Mikula said.
There are currently between one and nine in-patients who have the virus at the hospital.