Doug Ford urged to call in the military as Omicron threatens to overwhelm Ontario hospitals

Premier Doug Ford is facing pressure to prevent a crisis as hospital systems warn Omicron is driving up patient numbers dramatically while more and more health staff are isolating at home with symptoms.

Ontario reported its largest one-day increase in COVID-19 hospitalizations of the pandemic Wednesday, prompting opposition parties to urge the Progressive Conservative government take bolder steps to prepare for an onslaught of patients.

The New Democrats and Liberals called on Ford to request help from the Canadian Armed Forces for hospitals and nursing homes where COVID-19 outbreaks are rising sharply, act faster to accredit foreign-trained nurses and free up doctors and nurses from vaccination centres by replacing them with dentists and other injection-qualified health-care professionals.

There are urgent steps that need to be taken to make sure that a tough situation does not become that much worse," Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca told a news conference.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said Ford is missing a chance to bolster the system in part by scrapping Bill 124, which capped wage increases for nurses and other public sector works before the pandemic hit.

There are a lot of front-line, health-care workers who have walked away, who are burnt out and have left the profession. We need a strategy to get those people back."

Horwath argued against re-hiring nurses and other health-care workers terminated by some hospitals for refusing to be vaccinated, saying that would pour gas on the fire" by increasing the risk of infection.

The number of patients in hospital with COVID-19 topped 2,000 on Wednesday. That's up about 800 from the previous day and almost triple the level of a week ago, although the number includes hundreds requiring care for other conditions but testing positive for the coronavirus.

Nevertheless, hospitals in Brampton, Etobicoke, Hamilton, Niagara, Chatham and Sarnia say they are hitting critical levels of demand. Hospitals across the province have been directed by the province to cancel up to 10,000 non-emergency surgeries a week to deal with the latest pandemic surge.

That directive is being extended to independent health clinics outside hospitals, barring them from performing non-urgent surgeries that require surgical nursing or anesthesia support or any high-risk surgeries that could result in someone being sent to the emergency department," said Health Minister Christine Elliott's office.

Chatham-Kent Health Alliance chief executive Lori Marshall said Wednesday three COVID intensive care patients have been transferred to hospital in London and cited the most significant demand on hospital services that we have seen ... throughout the entire pandemic."

Ford warned Monday that Ontario is facing a tsunami" of the highly-contagious but less severe Omicron variant and hospitals could be overwhelmed by the end of the month. To deal with that, he announced a return to online learning and new restrictions including closures of indoor restaurant dining, gyms, movie theatres and other venues.

Firing back at opposition parties with just five months until the June 2 provincial election, Health Minister Christine Elliott's office said the surgery delays will free up between 1,200 and 1,500 hospital beds and noted 4,300 people, such as retired doctors or paramedics and dentists, have volunteered to serve in vaccination clinics with 1,400 sent for immunizer training to date.

There are already nurses trained abroad cleared to work in selected high-need hospitals" to ease staffing shortages, added Elliott spokeswoman Alexandra Hilkene.

We will continue to work with our health care and hospital partners to ensure they have the support they need and will not hesitate to take further action."

At this point, intensive care unit occupancy province-wide remains well within capacity, with 288 COVID patients - however, that number is up from 190 patients a week ago and the Ontario Hospital association said Wednesday there have been 124 adults admitted into intensive care in the last three days.

Hamilton Health Sciences chief executive Rob MacIsaac warned exponential growth in COVID cases means we have very limited capacity to take on significant new numbers of patients."

In Sarnia, Bluewater Health said half of its ICU beds are filled with COVID pneumonia patients and five times the usual number of staff on sick leave, forcing double shifts and cancelled vacations.

We are having end-of-life discussions with families of patients in all age categories - not just older ages," chief executive Mike Lapaine and chief of staff Dr. Mike Haddad said in a memo urging area residents to stay at home and avoid socializing.

Niagara Health System will temporarily close its Fort Erie urgent care clinic starting Thursday at 11 p.m. to redeploy" its doctors and nurses to its hospital campuses.

This wave of the pandemic is beyond anything that we have experienced," chief executive Lynn Guerriero said in a letter to the community that asked family doctors and primary care clinics in Fort Erie to extend their hours.

On Monday, the William Osler Health System operating the Brampton Civic and Etobicoke General hospitals declared a code orange" because of the number of patients and was transferring more than a dozen out to hospitals in Toronto to make room for more.

Rob Ferguson is a Toronto-based reporter covering Ontario politics for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @robferguson1