(file photo/paNOW Staff)

By Glenn Hicks

covid-19

Extra ICU beds for Victoria Hospital with more to come

Dec 18, 2020 | 8:00 AM

As the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) deals with the staffing challenges of upping Intensive Care Unit capacity across the province, Prince Albert’s Victoria Hospital has increased its ICU capacity by 50 per cent amid the surge in COVID-19 cases.

And, with the hospital reaching – and even exceeding – normal capacity, there are plans to further increase the amount of ICU beds in the coming weeks.

Four more ICU beds with potential for 20

With a significant increase in hospitalizations due to the rise in COVID-positive cases in the community, paNOW contacted SHA to get some specific numbers.

The Victoria Hospital, which offers the only ICU in the North Central zone, has increased its capacity from eight to 12 beds. SHA said five of those can currently be used for high ventilator settings.

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However, by the end of January 2021, the ICU capacity can flex to 20, of which nine can be ventilators.

On Wednesday of this week 30 people in total across the province were in an ICU unit and six of those were in the Victoria Hospital.

SHA added there has been as many as 26 COVID-positive patients at the Victoria Hospital in the last two weeks, including ICU and non-ICU patients, and teams are working very hard throughout the health system to ensure there is capacity to meet the needs of all patients.

Staffing strains and avoiding 400 number

SHA said as of Wednesday the province’s ICUs were at 96 per cent of capacity and 37 per cent of those patients were COVID-positive. With a normal capacity of 75 ICU beds across all its critical care sites in various cities that would imply only three ICU beds would be left, had these been normal times. However SHA is slowing down certain services and identifying staff who have past ICU experience to support more ICU beds. By Dec. 31, the SHA said the total number can flex to 328 ICU beds with the ability to intubate and ventilate. By February 2021 they can increase to 393 ICU beds.

However, SHA said while it was nearing its mid-December target to enable the care for 64 COVID positive cases requiring ICU, human resources and staffing remains a barrier.

“Our teams have responded extremely well to a very difficult situation,” Scott Livingstone, CEO of SHA said. “But sustained high caseloads and high numbers of outbreaks are straining staff capacity and requiring us to mobilize and redeploy high numbers of staff quickly, severely testing our ability to keep up with this virus.”

SHA said it needed all Saskatchewan residents to do their part “to bend the trajectory we are on, and ensure that we are not in a situation where we have 400 patients a day in critical care.”

—

glenn.hicks@jpbg.ca

On Twitter:@princealbertnow