McMaster Children’s Hospital sets new record for ER visits as COVID causes strain
A record number of kids visited the emergency department at McMaster Children's Hospital one day this week as COVID continues to strain the local health-care system.
We're currently continuing to see transmission decreasing but it's still at an elevated level," medical officer of health Dr. Elizabeth Richardson said this week.
As a result, outbreaks were still wreaking havoc in high-risk settings; There were 20 on Friday, including Stoney Creek's Revera Ridgeview Long Term Care Home, where 70 have been infected. The outbreaks take up so many resources that public health has had to redeploy inspectors back to the pandemic response.
The city has reported at least 11 COVID deaths over 10 days from May 11 to May 20 to bring pandemic fatalities to 561. A death has also been reported in an outbreak at long-term care home St. Peter's Residence at Chedoke, where 28 have tested positive.
Hamilton hospitals were overcrowded Friday while caring for 98 COVID patients - including seven in intensive care. At the same time, the hospitals had four outbreaks and 286 staff self-isolating.
There's some people who feel that the pandemic has ended and that is absolutely not true," said Dr. Amit Arya, assistant clinical professor in the department of family medicine at McMaster University. I think a lot of people are not aware about how COVID-19 is still most definitely here in Canada and is a deadly and disabling virus."
Nevertheless, public health and the city's Emergency Operations Centre will stop providing dedicated COVID updates to city council committees after the board of health meets on June 13.
The summer months should help us in many ways by getting outdoors ... to decrease those transmission levels," Richardson told the general issues committee Wednesday.
Mayor Fred Eisenberger said he won't hesitate to bring back the state of emergency that came to an end May 10 if it's needed again.
We don't know what's coming down the road," he said. Obviously there is some anxiety around that. We're in a better place now ... Hopefully that good news continues."
Hamilton's daily average cases were down to 85 on Wednesday from 108 on May 11. The per cent of tests coming back positive has been stable, hovering between 13 per cent and 14 per cent since April 30.
The average number of Hamiltonians hospitalized has decreased to 2.9 a day on May 17 from 4.6 on May 3. However, Hamilton's hospitals remain under pressure with occupancy at 112 per cent at Juravinski Hospital, 104 per cent at St. Joseph's Healthcare and 101 per cent at Hamilton General. Ideal is up to 90 per cent.
In addition, McMaster Children's had a new high of 251 kids come to the emergency department on Monday - the previous record was 232 on a day in 2019. The hospital has averaged 190 visits daily for the past seven days. Over the entire month, McMaster has seen about 40 kids more a day compared to the same time in 2019.
The waiting room is crowded, and patients and families are stressed," Hamilton Health Sciences said in a statement. Our team is feeling the pressure."
McMaster can't say yet how many of the visits were due to COVID. However, 950 kids with COVID symptoms came to the emergency department in May so far.
We are seeing multiple different viruses circulating in the community at the same time right now, some causing very high fevers," Dr. Christopher Sulowski, chief of the pediatric emergency department, said in a statement.
McMaster has asked parents to go to NeedADoc.ca for other treatment options. St. Joseph's had recommended checking hamiltonemergencywaittimes.ca.
Joanna Frketich is a health reporter at The Spectator. jfrketich@thespec.com