Health-care workers on edge as number of Albertans hospitalized with COVID-19 doubles
CBC
Doctors and nurses are warning that Alberta's health system is already under strain as COVID-19 hospitalizations surge and the respiratory virus season has yet to kick into high gear.
Internal Alberta Health Services data obtained by CBC News shows the number of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 has surpassed 900 and has roughly doubled in about a month.
That includes all patients who are COVID-positive in hospital. ICU admissions have also risen over the past month.
This data has not been publicly available for months because the provincial government changed the way it reports COVID statistics.
"The concern for me is we're already hitting capacity issues and we're still relatively early on in the respiratory season," said Dr. Arun Abbi, president of the emergency medicine section with the Alberta Medical Association.
"The peak last year was about 1,500 to 1,600."
Three COVID patients were admitted by Abbi in one nightshift alone at the Foothills Medical Centre earlier this week.
At the same time, he said, ERs continue to be plagued by backlogs of patients who are admitted but can't be moved upstairs because there are no available beds on the wards.
On that same nightshift, just under half of the open ER beds were taken up with such patients, according to Abbi.
"And I worry by the end of November or December, are we going to be having even more beds blocked with admitted patients?"
In Edmonton, Dr. Neeja Bakshi is worried as she watches the latest COVID-19 wave.
"We've definitely seen a huge uptick in the last few months," said Bakshi, an internal medicine physician at the Royal Alexandra Hospital.
"[There are] a lot of outbreaks in hospitals all throughout the province, which indicates that the prevalence and the transmission rates are quite high."
As of Tuesday, 19 acute care facilities were reporting COVID-19 outbreaks. Edmonton hospitals, which have recently enacted a new AHS masking directive, are particularly hard hit.
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