THUNDER BAY — Thunder Bay’s regional hospital says its pediatric unit is being pushed to the limit of its capacity due to a surge of RSV that, along with an uptick in COVID-19 admissions, is continuing to put significant pressure on the hospital.
The Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre had increased its pediatric beds by 50 per cent in November in anticipation of a surge of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) cases, increasing to 18 beds in total.
As of Thursday, the hospital had added a 19th bed in the unit, doubling up in some rooms and converting some family and lounge to patient care.
Hospital CEO Rhonda Crocker Ellacott described that step as “incredibly out of the ordinary.”
“We are a 12-bed pediatric unit, and yes, there's been times when we've surged above 12, but 19 is a significant number. I don't actually recall the last time I've ever seen 19 pediatric admissions.”
The hospital is expecting RSV infections to surge further, and could be forced to care for some children outside of the pediatric unit if that happens. Steps could include moving older children to other units, where appropriate, or even transferring children to other hospitals, Crocker Ellacott said.
“We are prepared to surge beyond what we're at now if needed,” she said. “And we do also have partner hospitals in Ontario that we have agreements with if children require a different level of care, to transfer children across the province, which is not ideal, but it could happen at different points in time.”
Most children presenting with respiratory illnesses are recovering quickly, but Crocker Ellacott said the hospital expects the situation will get worse before it gets better, with the Christmas holiday likely to increase transmission of COVID-19 and RSV in the community.
“We're actually expecting the RSV and COVID numbers potentially to grow over the next short term,” she said. “We're hopeful maybe we did peak in terms of flu — not 100 per cent certain on that. But certainly COVID and RSV are going to continue into the foreseeable future as the wave progresses.”
There were 37 COVID-positive patients in the hospital as of Thursday, the highest level in over a month. The figure has ranged between about 13 and 51 throughout the year, Crocker-Ellacott said.
There is currently one confirmed COVID-19 outbreak at the hospital, on the 2A Medical Inpatient Unit.
The hospital reported on Monday its medical/surgical occupancy was at approximately 103.9 per cent, and its ICU occupancy was at 90.9 per cent.
She said while the public “has very much shifted back to a semblance of normal” after being on high alert earlier in the COVID-19 pandemic, that’s not the case at the hospital.
“I'd say over the last six months, it's probably [been] the most challenging of all times during the pandemic, because at the height of the pandemic, we were not providing surgical and procedural care for elective patients,” she said. “We were really shutting down the majority of services that we were able to shut down.”
“Now, we're in a situation where not only are we dealing with a high continued surge of respiratory illness, but we're also trying to bring back the waitlist for surgical and procedural care, and we're really trying to ramp back up all of our operations.”
That effort brought some success, she reported, with the hospital’s surgical waitlist trimmed by about 1,000 patients in recent months.
Crocker Ellacott said frontline staff deserve recognition for that effort.
“I really want to recognize the incredible fatigue of our staff, but the resilience, the commitment, the dedication, the herculean efforts,” she said. “I continue to be amazed by them each and every day.”
