Thread by @QCHOttawa

Hey Ottawa,

It’s been one week since schools re-opened, and in one more week Ontario will further open up. People have asked us how QCH is holding up, so today we are providing a glimpse of the good, the bad, and the ugly. A snapshot of a day-in-the-life-of-QCH.🧵 1/14 #ottnews

Let’s start w/ occupancy: Today we have 320 admitted patients. Not our highest, but pre-COVID we had 273 beds. We have additional patients in the temporary unit at Fairfield Inn, and our surgical team is running a temporary unit in Day Surgery. 2/14

ED: Only 12 patients had to spend last night in ED (we would rather that be none, but this is our current reality). We’ve varied up to 27 patients per night in ED in January. Overall volumes are not high for January, but patient flow to the units has been a challenge. 3/14

Acuity: On average, acuity is higher – meaning admitted patients are slightly sicker than normal, which means longer stays. 4/14

ICU: All 12 beds in our ICU are full, 10 with vented patients. There are 4 of 5 beds occupied in our secondary ICU. We have not yet had to surge into an additional temporary ICU in our PACU department during this wave. That’s still there if we need it. Hopefully we won’t. 5/14

COVID: Some good news here, we are down to only 56 patients admitted with a positive COVID test, down from 82 a few weeks ago. Trending in the right direction. Unfortunately, Omicron is a particularly contagious variant and we continue to battle outbreaks on multiple units. 6/14

Surgery: We’re operating at about 40% of our normal surgical capacity, following Directive 2 and restricting procedures to only urgent and emergent. Staff from surgical and other areas have been redeployed – some for the third or fourth time – to where they’re needed most. 7/14

Staffing: Normally we have ~40 nursing vacancies, today 90+. That's about 11 unfilled nursing shifts on any given day, over 20 on tougher days. Staff taking on extra shifts & work. There is still a freeze on vacation, which we absolutely hate. It’s hard on everyone. 8/14

Overall: These next few weeks will be challenging as we hit the peak of this wave. ICU numbers are predicted to peak in mid-February. As Ontario starts to open up, it will still be busy here. It’ll still be all hands on deck. 9/14

It’s a challenge felt by all hospitals. Staff are exhausted. They’re humans and, while they’re talked about as heroes, they don’t actually have superpowers. 10/14

Our team has stepped up again and again. We see it every day in a hundred ways: extra shifts, extra workloads, managers putting on scrubs for the first time in years to provide patient care. We are so proud of this team. Their resilience, kindness and commitment is amazing. 11/14

Violence and aggression towards healthcare workers has been steadily rising. They chose their jobs because they want to care for people. Please treat them with respect. They notice every kind gesture and grateful word. Your words of support, they matter. 12/14

Every single time you make the decision to stay safe? That matters too. You’re protecting yourself, your loved ones and avoiding a potential hospital stay. (You know the guidelines so we won’t repeat them). And please take care of your mental health. It’s just as important. 13/14

As a hospital, as a health system & as a community, we need to look at what we’re doing today in the face of COVID - and also look ahead to how we can recover, adapt, rebuild and restore. There's lots happening today, but let’s keep looking with hope to the future.

-QCH 14/14