South Health Campus to use pediatric beds for coronavirus cases
Alberta Health Services is centralizing emergency-room space for children in preparation for a surge in COVID -19 hospitalizations, the province announced Thursday.
All nine pediatric emergency beds at southeast Calgary’s South Health Campus will immediately be converted into space for adults. Dedicated beds for those under the age of 18 will now only be offered at the Alberta Children’s Hospital.
According to Dr. Antonia Stang, the AHS section chief for pediatric emergency medicine, the decision was made to spread out care space for those infected with the novel coronavirus, particularly as the virus is thought to affect older populations significantly more than younger ones.
“What we’ve seen of COVID-19 in other countries would suggest that children often have milder disease than adults,” Stang said.
“We wanted to make sure that with the anticipated surge in demand for acute care and emergency space, particularly for adults, we would move our pediatric care out of there to the Children’s Hospital so we could free up those spaces for those likely to need it most.”
Stang says the number of general AHS emergency visits for both pediatric and adult patients has decreased over the past few weeks, something she attributes in part to Calgarians following social distancing protocol and staying home.
Children will still be able to be seen in city emergency rooms, including at South Health Campus, Stang stressed.
The topic of repurposing or requisitioning AHS space in order to have enough beds to accommodate the peak of Alberta’s COVID-19 outbreak was front of mind Thursday, when Alberta chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw said in her daily update that Alberta is striving to avoid a situation like that in Italy, where there are too few beds to treat all infected patients.
Alberta has about 8,500 hospital beds. According to projections from the province, the COVID-19 pandemic will take up about 2,250 of those beds at its peak.