Ontario is throwing hundreds of internationally trained nurses into the COVID-19 fight but critics point out the system is thousands of nurses short.
Ontario is throwing hundreds of internationally trained nurses into the fight against COVID-19 as thousands of hospital staff call in sick or isolate daily and an Omicron wave of hospitalizations is expected to peak in early February.
About 300 nurses are being deployed to 50 high-need hospitals “immediately” to care for patients under supervision and work toward getting their licences in the province, Ontario Health chief executive Matthew Anderson said Tuesday.
They will be among the 6,000 extra health-care workers — including nursing students, medical students and other students from health-care programs — to join the COVID-19 effort by March 31, Health Minister Christine Elliott told a news conference as Ontario reported 80 new admissions to intensive care units, the highest daily increase of the pandemic.
“Every nurse matters. Every person that we can get to that front line of care makes a difference,” said Anderson, whose agency co-ordinates the many parts of Ontario’s health-care system.
But critics noted that 300 nurses is an average of just six per hospital and questioned why it took Premier Doug Ford’s administration almost two years into the pandemic to reach this step, at a time when big hospitals are seeing hundreds of staff members unable to work.
“This government still has not figured how to get out ahead,” New Democrat Leader Andrea Horwath told reporters after the news conference by Elliott and Anderson.
“I didn’t hear anything at all that provided any detail whatsoever on what they’re going to be doing and how they’re going to be integrated into a system that’s currently in crisis,” she said of the nurses and students.
Ontario reported Tuesday there were 3,220 people in hospital with COVID-19, an increase of 753 from the previous day and almost triple the level of 1,290 a week ago. Emergency departments in many hospitals are swamped and running well over capacity.
Hospitalization statistics are now being broken down, with 54 per cent of the patients in for COVID-19 and 46 per cent admitted for other illnesses but testing positive for the coronavirus.
“While this doesn’t change the serious situation in Ontario’s hospitals, we feel it is important to share this data to provide additional context,” Elliott said.
Of the 477 patients in intensive care with COVID-19, 83 per cent are there primarily because of the coronavirus and 17 per cent have it in addition to other medical issues that have put them in critical condition.
Elliott said 600 intensive care beds remain available and the province can add 500 more hospital ward beds as admissions keep rising. Ontario has capacity for almost 2,500 ICU beds, and 1,353 are already occupied by non-COVID-19 patients.
The science table of experts advising the Ford government estimates intensive care occupancy is doubling every 8.5 days, which suggests the province is heading toward 1,000 ICU patients with COVID-19 by the end of next week.
The 300 nurses trained abroad are among 1,200 trained in other countries who have signed up for a program to get their Ontario licences and help alleviate a shortage of thousands of nurses that pre-date the pandemic.
“I’m happy to see this finally happen but we shouldn’t have waited until hospitals were overwhelmed,” said Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca.
While many people assume that COVID-19’s Omicron variant — which tends to cause milder illness in the vaccinated and boosted who do not have underlying medical conditions — is the only risk now, the more serious Delta variant is still circulating, and is responsible for about 500 cases daily, said Dr. Peter Juni, scientific director of the science table.
Article From: The Star
Author: Rob Ferguson
