COVID patients lumped together in Edmonton hospital

Havoc is hitting hospitals as patients hospitalized for some other acute illness are getting COVID, adding to the complexity of care — and Alberta’s COVID vaccinations aren’t available yet, and the province’s low vaccination rate isn’t helping.

Dr. Warren Thirsk, an emergency room physician at the Royal Alexandra Hospital and president of the emergency room section of the Alberta Medical Association, said SARS-COVID-2 is alive and sick and wreaking havoc.

The hospital is bundling patients with infectious diseases together in an effort to isolate COVID in particular.

“There’s been at least a couple COVID outbreaks declared at different wards in the hospital. There are signs that there is COVID spreading amongst the patients on a ward, so then they close the whole ward, and we are still trying to cohort patients,” Thirsk said.

When you get admitted to hospital, if you test positive for COVID, you get put on a ward where everyone else also has COVID, since COVID transmits easily from patient to patient and person to person, Thirsk said.

“Especially when we’re at capacity and we’re looking at shared rooms and rooms with four people in them. If one person in that room has COVID, you know the next three are going to get it if they’re not already sick with COVID, which is why we lump them together.”

Anyone being admitted to the hospital is sick. They may require oxygen or IV fluids or antibiotics, he said.

“There has to be an important reason why you can’t be managed out of hospital, and then if you have COVID as part of the reason that you’re in hospital, it may be the reason that you’re needing oxygen,” Thirsk said, adding that COVID may just be the final thing tipping a patient over from someone who is managing just being sick at home versus sick enough to need the hospital.

“It’s like one more hit on a multi-system problem for a lot of people because people are generally, as our population ages and as we see more complexity in the health care system, people are presenting with more and more health problems, and so they just sort of add together, and COVID’s just sort of the straw that breaks the camel’s back sometimes for many of those patients,” Thirsk said.

As of Tuesday, the province’s respiratory virus dashboard only showed indicators as of Oct. 3.

There’s been 322 COVID cases, with 87 cases reported just in the week between Sept. 27 and Oct. 3, with 24 cases in hospital and one case in ICU.

So far this season, one person died from SARS-COVID-2.

The problem is compounded with what seems to be an unending issue with wait times in ER, triggered by shortages of both staff and available admission beds, Thirsk said.

“We’re seeing hallways full of stretchers and ambulance patients being offloaded into hallways, and you know wait times are creeping into the double digits fairly routinely. So I’d say yes, it’s bad. I don’t know that it’s really gotten much better over the summer,” Thirsk said.

Flu numbers are on the rise earlier than usual in Alberta, and once the flu season really slams the province, there will be more vulnerable groups harshly effected — the immune suppressed, the elders, the younger, he said.

“We’re going to be seeing some more of those coming into the ER. We can’t handle what’s there now, so anything that puts more people into the hospital puts more people into the emergency department. It will stress the system more and create longer waits and potentially worse outcomes,” Thirsk said.

It’s all exacerbated by low levels of COVID vaccination around the province, he said.

“The hospital is rolling out the flu shot and the COVID shot for health care workers, and so the greater public population has not been getting lots of either immunization yet, mostly because they haven’t been available. We usually start immunizations in October, and so we’re just starting those now. And this year, though, the viruses have landed early, and so a lot of people will catch the disease as opposed to getting immunized to be protected from the disease,” he said.

Influenza isn’t the only bug with shapeshifting capabilities. COVID’s in the background, fluctuating and mutating like a virus does, Thirsk said.

“It will mutate, and everyone who caught COVID before will catch it again, because your immunity is no longer going to work. Your immune system tends to forget about COVID fairly quickly, and then you also have it mutating away from the immunity that you do have,” Thirsk said.

“We were told it was going to be endemic, and people didn’t really think that that just meant it was going to keep coming back. It is back,” Thirsk said.

Sharif Haji, shadow minister for primary and preventative health services for the Alberta NDP,  sent a statement encouraging Albertans to get vaccinated.

“Last year was the deadliest flu season on record, and Alberta’s lowest vaccination rates for over a decade. The UCP is charging most Albertans over $100 for a COVID shot during an affordability crisis instead of making it easier for people to get vaccinated and taking pressure off our health care system,” he said.

Albertans can book their fall immunization appointments online or by calling Health Link at 811, said Jaye Lang, press secretary for Primary and Preventative Health Services.

“Immunizations have already begun for some of the most vulnerable Albertans. Starting in early October, as soon as vaccines became available, residents in congregate care settings were offered vaccines, as appropriate,” Lang said.