Hospitals told to prepare for post-holiday surge

Ontario is asking hospitals to be ready to use their surge capacity within 48 hours should soaring COVID-19 cases prompt the need for extra beds at short notice — a request that comes as the facilities’ leaders hold an emergency meeting on rising infections.

The CEO of Ontario Health, which co- ordinates several agencies in the health-care system, asked hospitals in a memo to be prepared for an anticipated space crunch.

“Our ability to care for patients (COVID and nonCOVID alike) is being challenged, so we are asking hospitals to work together, even more, to ensure we can continue to have the bed capacity to care for patients, safely and effectively,” Matt Anderson wrote on Tuesday.

“The actions we collectively take in the next days and weeks will set the stage for our ability to meet escalating and anticipated capacity demands.”

Hospitals in the province’s lockdown and red zones need to ensure they have at least 10 to 15 per cent surge capacity for adult COVID-19 patients, Anderson said.

Facilities in green, yellow, and orange zones should plan how to incrementally create at least that amount of surge capacity for patients with the virus, he said.

The request came as the Ontario Hospital Association’s board of directors met Wednesday for an emergency discussion about rising COVID-19 infections.

The association said it’s deeply concerned by the worsening pandemic and related pressure on hospitals.

It said it appears increasingly likely that in late December and into January, hospitals will face a wave of seriously ill COVID patients that will almost certainly disrupt other acute-care services and operations.

“The threat to Ontario’s hospitals risks being even worse if people gather in person over the holidays,” the association said in a statement.

“This is a far more serious situation than wave one, given the need to maintain access to elective surgery. It is essential that people stay home if they are able.”

Ontario reported 2,139 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday and 43 new deaths due to the virus.

L ockdown zones continued to report high case counts, with 780 in Toronto, 528 in Peel Region, 148 in York Region, and 111 in Windsor-Essex. Those followed a single-day provincial record of 2,275 new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath called the situation in the province’s hospitals “terrifying” and urged the government to take further action to limit spread of the virus.

“There needs to be a post-holiday plan,” she said. “Sitting on your hands and waiting for the vaccine is not going to work.”