THUNDER BAY – Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre is ready to mobilize at a moment’s notice to restart a COVID-19 isolation unit.
At the moment, nothing is imminent said Dr. Stewart Kennedy, who heads the hospital’s COVID-19 response team.
There are currently five COVID-19-positive cases admitted to the hospital, one below the number that would normally trigger the return of the isolation unit, which was opened earlier this year, but shut down in May after no more than a handful of cases at any given time inside the facility.
Kennedy said the infectious period of two of the infected patients should be over in the next few days.
“Hopefully we’ll be down to about three over the next several days. But we never know what’s around the corner and what’s going to come in, so we always have preparations made to open COVID-19 units as we get to the magical number, around six,” Kennedy said.
“That number can fluctuate depending on demand in the community, what’s up in the community and what we expect will be coming in.”
At present there are 112 active cases in the Thunder Bay District Health Unit’s catchment area, 71 of which are staff and residents of Southbridge Roseview nursing home, where three people have died during the outbreak.
Kennedy said two days ago there were six COVID-19 patients in hospital, four admitted and two in the emergency department.
There was some discussion about reopening the COVID-19 ward, located on the third floor of the hospital, but it was decided at the time that it wasn’t necessary.
“We were really close, but when we reviewed each case individually and we knew two were going to go home and self-isolate at home, we called things off,” Kennedy said. “We are sometimes within hours of opening it up and then we look at the status of the patients and we can either increase or decrease our concern.”
Kennedy said once the unit is open, there’s a chance it could impact other services, including surgeries.
The hospital is currently at 90 per cent capacity, which is concerning, but Kennedy said if the need to open the COVID-19 unit arises, they can likely send a number of patients home to recover outside the hospital.”
“We’re still operating at full tilt, and that includes our operations as well as our out-patient diagnostics … But we can actually decant quite rapidly if we get an influx of COVID-19 patients,” Kennedy said.
The hospital lead said the move to Orange-Restrict on Monday shouldn’t have too much of an impact on the facility, noting the hospital is already in Code Red in its own, internal rating, adding he feels they are well-prepared and well-stocked with personal protective equipment should the number of positive cases admitted continue to grow.
