Despite the mass vaccination that begins next week, hospital emergencies are preparing for a third wave of the pandemic.
There is a great fear that the instructions will be relaxed during the spring break.
• Read also: All the developments of the pandemic
At the Pierre-Boucher hospital in Longueuil on Wednesday, the occupancy rate was 171%. This means that 60 stretchers were occupied out of a capacity of 35.
As a result of this traffic, 24 patients had been on stretchers for 24 hours and six for more than 48 hours.
17 people were hospitalized in a COVID-19 unit and two others in intensive care. In addition to these patients, 30 others, who recovered from the coronavirus, were still hospitalized due to other health problems.
This situation means that the hospital staff are caught with a headache in terms of bed management.
“Some floors are freed up to accommodate COVID patients only, which takes about 30 beds per floor section. Unfortunately, these are patients who could have had a bed on the upper floors who stay in the emergency room longer, ”explains Rafael Laplante, emergency nurse at Pierre-Boucher hospital.
While this coronavirus creates increased traffic, it also has the effect of discouraging many patients from coming to the hospital.
Pierre-Boucher’s emergencies usually receive 60,000 people per year. However, this year, 13,000 fewer patients are expected in the emergency room.
This is because many people avoid going to the hospital for fear of catching COVID-19.
“A 40-year-old man came with ten days of ruptured appendicitis. Appendicitis is a small thing. It is an urgent matter, but it is a small operation. When it’s been ten days that there is pus full in the stomach, it is not at all the same “game”, it is hours and hours of surgery, intensive care “, says Dr. Valérie Leblanc- Dominguez, co-head of emergencies at the Pierre-Boucher hospital.
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