GTA hospitals shifting resources in attempt to deal with surge in COVID patients
by Michael Ranger
Last Updated Apr 15, 2021 at 1:27 pm EDT
A digital Intensive Care Unit room at Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital in Vaughan, Ontario on Monday, January 18, 2021. The new hospital is being opened to take patients from other hospitals that are strained by COVID-19. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Frank Gunn
The number of patients flooding into GTA hospitals continues to grow with staff and resources being shuffled and patients being moved to deal with the demand.
Doctors are not only seeing more patients during the third wave, but many are showing up with much more severe symptoms of COVID-19.
TORONTO Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital is a new hospital getting ready for an unexpected opening. On Sunday, the hospital will welcome 12 intensive care patients from Mackenzie Richmond Hill Hospital, along with 30 others to its general internal medicine beds. The move comes as way to help address the surge of COVID-19 patients and capacity issues in hard hit areas in the Greater Toronto Area. “About 3 weeks ago, we started the projections with respect to critical care in particular and started to understand that the province was going to need upwards of 500 critical care beds,” said President and CEO of Mackenzie Health Altaf Stationwala.