Southwestern Ontario hospitals overwhelmed as Omicron cases surge

A surge in COVID-19 cases and a shortage of healthcare workers is overwhelming southwestern Ontario hospitals, creating a growing crisis as the region's healthcare facilities deal with new Omicron cases. 

Daily COVID-19 case counts have more than tripled since August, while at the same time, healthcare workers aren't reporting to work for reasons ranging from pandemic burnout, to catching the illness themselves and, in some cases, refusing to get vaccinated against the virus.

At London Health Sciences Centre, southwestern Ontario's largest hospital, hundreds of infections among staff have forced the hospital to undergo a major internal reorganization, cancelling all non-urgent surgeries and reorganizing wards and reassigning nurses to so-called "hot zones," where the deluge of new Omicron patients can be treated. 

"This is not the position we want to be in, we know we're in a backlog," Dr. Adam Dukelow, the chief of the hospital's department of emergency medicine told CBC Radio's London Morning Wednesday. 

"We're doing everything we can to keep every bed and resource we have open," he said. "We're stretched." 

As of Wednesday morning at least 63 adults had been admitted to hospital with COVID-19, at least 10 of whom were in critical care. Dukelow noted many children have been admitted with the illness, which isn't surprising given the rise of the illness in the community at large. However there were no children in pediatric critical care as of Wednesday. 

Among staff, 261 healthcare workers are currently dealing with virus symptoms and despite the labour crunch, Dukelow said LHSC is operating at 93 per cent capacity and continues to take patients from other healthcare facilities around the peninsula where demand for care exceeds the capacity. 

"We are still in a position at this time to take patients from other parts of the province and we are lucky in the southwest to have great ICU capacity in St Thomas, Woodstock and Owen Sound," he said, noting each of those hospitals have also been taking their share of people afflicted by the virus. 

More to come.