Alberta sees record number of ICU admissions as COVID-19 hospitalizations soar
CBC
Alberta hospitals are seeing their highest-ever number of patients being admitted for critical care — and part of the reason they're able to keep up is because of a high number of deaths from COVID-19, says the head of Alberta Health Services (AHS).
Over the past five days, the average number COVID-19 intensive care unit admissions has been over 23 per day, Dr. Verna Yiu, president and CEO of Alberta Health Services, said at a Thursday news conference. There are currently 310 people in ICU across the province, including 226 with COVID-19.
"We have never, ever had that number of total patients in ICU before. Never with the prior waves and never in the history of this province," she said.
"It's tragic that we are only able to keep pace with these sort of numbers because, in part, some of our ICU patients have passed away. And this reality has a deep and lasting impact on our ICU teams."
Alberta reported another 17 deaths on Thursday as COVID-19 continues to strain its hospitals. There are now 1,058 hospitalized cases of COVID-19 across the province.
AHS has already more than doubled the baseline capacity for intensive care beds, and is struggling to add more capacity every day. That includes transferring patients between zones on days when ICU admissions in hospitals outnumber available beds, Yiu said.
"Nothing is really standard about this situation right now, including staff ratios and some of the patient care we are providing outside of our ICUs."
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