Faced with a growing increase in the number of patients with COVID-19, the Charles-Le Moyne hospital in Longueuil will be forced to move to level 4 of its load shedding plan as of Sunday.
“The CISSS de la Montérégie-Centre is preparing to move to alert level 4 on January 16, which provides for greater load shedding in order to prioritize the response to urgent and semi-urgent needs,” confirmed the director on Wednesday evening. Corporate Communications, Martine Lesage.
This new directive should therefore affect both the Charles-Le Moyne hospital and that of Haut-Richelieu, in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu.
However, Ms. Lesage was not able to explain, concretely, to what extent the transition to this higher level of load shedding will affect services in the two hospitals, “since the terms of the load shedding plan are being developed”.
According to data from the Ministry of Health, 129 infected patients were at the Charles-Le Moyne hospital on January 11, compared to 83 at the Haut-Richelieu hospital. These two hospitals, however, had few cases in intensive care, with four in Charles-Le Moyne and none in Haut-Richelieu.
Level 4 load shedding is the highest. The latter can go so far as to involve the closure of the emergency rooms of the smallest hospitals, in addition to betting on the postponement of all non-emergency activities in day medicine, in the operating room and in various specialties, with the aim of freeing up beds and resources to treat patients with COVID-19.
Several CISSSs and CIUSSSs in Greater Montreal have received authorization in the last few days to initiate their level 4 plan.
According to the newspaper “Métro”, the CIUSSS de Montréal-Nord also recognized on Monday that it had to resolve to go to level 4 of load shedding “in physical health hospitals”.
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