Osler Health, which includes Brampton Civic and Etobicoke General hospitals, signals staff to redeploy in the face of external disaster.
Due to an increase in COVID-19 patients and staff shortages, William Osler Health System declared an internal Code Orange on Monday just hours after Premier Doug Ford told Ontarians to “brace for impact” from the spread of Omicron.
An internal Code Orange signals staff will have to be redeployed across the hospital in the face of an external disaster.
“We’re facing a natural disaster that’s sort of slowly evolving in front of us,” said Dr. Andrew Healey, corporate chief of emergency medicine at Osler Health which includes Brampton Civic and Etobicoke General hospitals. “Slowly might not actually be the right word when it comes to Omicron. But we’re seeing this wave of infections come through our door in a different way than we’ve seen in previous waves of the pandemic.”
There are fewer cases of heavy COVID-19 pneumonia so far, but more people are walking through the doors. Brampton Civic has been one of the hardest-hit hospitals in the province during the entire pandemic. But Osler has not called a Code Orange for COVID before.
“There aren’t any empty beds that are staffed (and) waiting for patients, like zero,” Healey said. “We really can’t afford anyone to be off at this time, so we have to limit the spread as best we can.”
Osler also designated 16 patients for transfer to other GTA-area hospitals Sunday night for the first time in this fifth wave. Ontario’s patient transfer system was needed to keep hospitals from being overwhelmed in the third wave. But unlike in previous waves, Osler is sending patients to hospitals which are also experiencing staff shortages.
“It’s across the system,” Healey said. “There’s nobody that’s sitting around the table saying, ‘We’ve got empty staff beds, please send us 25 patients.’ That just does not exist.”
Osler has some ICU capacity. But, according to Healey, Etobicoke General was down more than half its emergency department nursing complement Sunday and Brampton Civic’s emergency department was short almost half its nurses. It is a combination of burnout, illness, COVID positives or exposures, and the effects of two years of the pandemic on the health-care system. Nursing ratios are being stretched to the limits.
The hospital is moving to N95 masks for staff, and visitors are being offered KN95s instead of surgical masks. Like intensive care, emergency nursing is a specialized skill, but Osler has already enlisted radiology nurses, labour and delivery nurses, and mental health nurses to help. As pressure grows, other services are diminished. And as in many hospitals, the lack of staff is causing more impatience and anger from patients, and has for some time.
“We’ve been seeing that for months, actually,” said Healey. “And we are trying to see that as empathetically as we can. We want people to come if they’re sick. But we want them to understand that the system is really stretched, and that we are truly doing our absolute best.”
Last week, Queensway Carleton Hospital in Ottawa called an internal Code Orange over similar staffing issues. And earlier in the pandemic, other hospitals resorted to calling the code, including St. Michael’s which did so at least nine times.
Article From: The Star
