‘Spiralling crisis’ as Hamilton records 101 outbreaks and increasing COVID hospitalizations
Hamilton has more than 100 active COVID outbreaks as the city continues to be one of Ontario's hardest hit in the fifth wave.
Hospitalizations soared to 302 on Friday, including 40 in the intensive care unit. That's up from 256 COVID patients Monday and 220 on Jan. 4. The highest number of admissions before the Omicron variant hit was 161. That was at the height of the third wave in April.
At the same time, Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS) and St. Joseph's Healthcare have a combined total of 888 staff self isolating - up from 759 on Monday.
The hospital networks also have 21 ongoing outbreaks between them, with more than 227 cases and two deaths.
The result is an increasing number of patients being transferred out of the region. Five patients were transferred as of Friday, which is a measure of the increasing strain on hospitals in Hamilton, Burlington, Niagara, Brant, Haldimand and Norfolk. Normally they avoid residents leaving Ontario West by spreading out the load between them.
In addition, HHS will shut down the West End Urgent Care Clinic on Main Street West Monday at 10 p.m. for up to eight weeks so it can redeploy the staff.
The Ontario Health Coalition calls it a spiralling crisis" in hospitals, home care and seniors' homes.
In hospitals we are seeing profound unprecedented staffing crises," executive director Natalie Mehra said in a statement Thursday. Hospitalizations are increasing significantly."
The coalition called on the government Friday to bring in emergency measures to address health care staffing shortages, particularly in long-term care.
Staffing is crumbling entirely in some homes," said Mehra. We are hearing devastating accounts of residents in decline from inadequate feeding, dehydration, lack of basic care."
Of Hamilton's 101 active outbreaks Friday, 37 were in seniors' homes. The city's largest outbreak was at Heritage Green Nursing Home in Stoney Creek where 85 have tested positive - a jump from 50 on Thursday.
Another large outbreak was at The Wellington Nursing Home on central Mountain where 58 have been infected.
The general public needs to understand the gravity of this wave of the pandemic," said Mehra. Omicron is not mild ... The health system is overwhelmed and the consequences of unfettered community spread of the virus are disproportionately borne by the elderly and health care workers."
More than one dozen organizations joined the health coalition's call for emergency staffing measures, including the Ontario Nurses' Association, the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions, the Ontario Federation of Labour, the Ontario Medical Students Association and the Ontario Public Service Employees Union.
Our province's health care system is not on the brink of crisis, it is in crisis," stated the call to action. It is not an overstatement to describe a number of facilities and services as being in staffing collapse."
Hamilton has been among the hardest hit in the fifth wave of the pandemic so far, with Ontario's second highest COVID case rate Friday behind Lambton.
The city had 6,783 cases per million population in the last seven days, according to an analysis by epidemiologist Ahmed Al-Jaishi. The last time Hamilton topped the chart was around Aug. 11 in the fourth wave, when the rate was 235.
Despite the majority of cases going unreported because testing is no longer available to the general public, Hamilton still had a daily average increase of 567 Friday. The highest this metric got before Omicron was 180 in April.
The city reported 10,000 active COVID cases although the actual number would be significantly higher. The previous record was around 2,000 in the third wave.
More than 31 per cent of tests have been coming back positive and the reproduction number is 1.84 - anything above 1.0 represents exponential growth.
The number of outbreaks Friday was almost double any other time in the pandemic despite whole categories no longer being reported as public health focuses on high risk settings.
Groups homes, communal and assisted living accounted for 28 of the outbreaks while shelters were another 12.
One of the outbreaks was in a rehabilitation centre, another in a hospice and one at a construction site at a seniors' home.
There were two outbreaks in jails, including one at the Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre that saw cases rise to 68 on Friday, up from 55 the day before.
Despite the increasing load on public health - which is short 100 staff itself - the department said in a statement this week that it continues to provide infection prevention and control guidance for highest-risk settings in outbreak.
The city counted only 19 of the hospital outbreaks in its numbers as two were at West Lincoln Memorial in Grimsby which is part of HHS.
No information was being provided on the transfers so it was unknown Friday which Ontario West hospitals sent the patients away or how far they went.
Joanna Frketich is a health reporter at The Spectator. jfrketich@thespec.com