WINDSOR, ONT. -- With Windsor Regional Hospital still catching up on postponed elective surgeries coupled with a number of in-hospital COVID-19 patients, health officials are considering reopening the field hospital.
WRH chief of staff Dr. Wassim Saad said both campuses have been operating above capacity for about two weeks.
“Just this past week went up to 102 per cent and that’s across both campuses on our medicine wards, on our surgical wards,” WRH chief of staff Dr. Wassim Saad said.
He said hovering around 100 per cent capacity is common, but not during the summer months.
“The ministry and province have said we need to be around 90 per cent in order for us to continue with surgical reopening and now that we’re sitting at 100 per cent we can’t advance the surgical program,” Saad said.
The hospital has resumed 52 per cent of non-urgent and elective surgeries, which is creating occupancy issues.
“We have to put a pause, wait and see what the numbers look like for a week or two and decide if we have to scale back or continue our ramp up,” he said.
Windsor-Essex is also consistently posting the highest number of COVID-19 cases in Ontario.
“You hope for less cases in the community, you hope for containment within the community cause otherwise we’re still going to be admitting patients with COVID, with respiratory symptoms and that’s outside the normal patients that require acute hospitalization.
There are 14 patients with COVID-19 in Windsor hospitals, five of whom are in the intensive care unit.
The agri-farm industry also continues to be a concern.
“Even though we were expecting a slight uptick in numbers it’s been higher than expected because of the fact we didn’t have it under control.
A shortage of beds could force officials to reopen the field hospital at the St. Clair College SportsPlex.
“We’ll have to wait and see what these numbers look like and some of the conversation will happen at the hospital level and may require some input from public health,” said Windsor-Essex medical officer of health Dr. Wajid Ahmed.
Dr. Saad said the hospital reassesses the situation weekly and eventually a decision will have to be made on whether or not to postpone elective surgeries and reopen the field hospital.
