Quinte Health Care is now known as Quinte Health / Submitted.
Quinte Health continues to look for public support as local hospitals deal with COVID-19 and an uptick in young children requiring care for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and influenza.
President and CEO Stacey Daub along with Chief of Staff Dr. Colin MacPherson, provided an update to the media this afternoon about the situation at the four local hospitals. The hospitals in the Quinte Health network are in Belleville, Trenton, Picton and Bancroft.
Daub noted that RSV and influenza are “tipping the scales” at the end of this current COVID-19 wave. Quinte Health is operating at 135 per cent over capacity in both the paediatric in-patient side and adult medicine side.
Daub added that the hospital teams in the paediatric area are seeing mostly children between the ages of four and ten needing care for RSV followed by influenza.
Quinte Health is also seeing about a 40 per cent increase in the number of children coming in from that age group. The hospital network experienced a 20 per cent uptick in the number of children visiting the emergency room last month.
Daub and her colleagues continue to encourage people to take a proactive approach when protecting themselves and vulnerable family members during what is expected to be a difficult winter for viruses and COVID-19.
Dr. Colin MacPherson noted that from his perspective, he continues to encourage people to stay home when they are sick, physical distance, wash hands, and clean high touch surfaces. Dr. MacPherson was asked about his position on masking, following news by Ontario’s top doctor this morning, who is now strongly encouraging people to mask up indoors.
“I would like to see more people wearing masks and minimizing the risk of spread as much as possible. Having said that, I’m mindful that my interests are managing the hospital in an acute sector. I know that the public health officer is trying to balance a whole number of interests with coming out with these recommendations. I feel it’s my responsibility to encourage people to take care of themselves, and the vulnerable people we live around in our communities,” said Dr. MacPherson.
He noted that he hopes people take the masking recommendation seriously as we have been through a lot and we know the difference it can make.
Daub also continues to encourage people to stay up to date with their COVID-19 shots and flu shots. She noted that the flu shot is a really good match this year.
“For every less case of flu in our community, we have a chance of having less people in the hospital,” said Daub in her appeal to the community.
On a logistic side, Daub and Dr. MacPherson noted that Quinte Health is operating 56 per cent more beds compared to three years ago. While there has been people hired, there is some human resources gaps.
Surgical back-logs for those who have been waiting the longest is down to about 15 per cent. Quinte Health has worked through about a 87 per cent reduction in mammography backlog.
Daub concluded that Quinte Health has learned a lot during the first round of the pandemic and planning continues to be in place if the situation deteriorates due to the increased demand.
To date, Daub added that Quinte Health continues to try to balance surgeries and diagnostic imaging and no significant changes have been made.
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