At Niagara Health, our inpatient COVID-19 activity is at its lowest since April 8. Our ICU capacity is stabilizing, which enables the surgical program to ramp up services postponed during the third wave.
“Thankfully, positive cases of COVID-19 continue to trend downward,” says Lynn Guerriero, President and Interim CEO at Niagara Health. “All in all, we are in a good position to gradually lift emergency measures that have been in place to respond to the high COVID-19 activity in the hospital.”
The following are highlights of this work:
- We will be at approximately 70% capacity with surgical procedures by the end of next week. Based on provincial direction, we are planning to reintroduce inpatient non-emergent and non-urgent surgeries and procedures.
- ICU Level 3 capacity is at 107%, and we still have several patients from the GTA in our care. We have surge plans in place to support additional ICU capacity, however at this time we are in a position to return physician staffing models to normal and return staff who were redeployed to the ICU back to their regular roles in a phased approach as the COVID-19 patient activity continues to decrease.
- We continue to welcome Essential Care Partners and Support Persons as appropriate, however visitor restrictions remain in place for the time being.
Today, we have 25 COVID-19 patients in our care, as compared to the height of the third wave, April 22-28, when we had 83-89 inpatients in our care.
With the Delta variant on the rise, vaccinations will continue to be a priority to minimize the virus’s ability to spread and its impact on people’s health. In all, 61.4% of the Niagara population is now vaccinated with a first dose. Our vaccination clinic team continues to work hard to administer first and second doses to those who live and work in Niagara.
“The demands and stresses on our staff, physicians and the community have been significant, especially during the third wave,” says Dr. Johan Viljoen, Chief of Staff at Niagara Health. “We’d like to acknowledge the hard work and compassion of our staff and physicians during this uniquely challenging time as well as the support and commitment from the community by following public health measures and getting vaccinated.”
