Alberta government working on hospital capacity amid surge of respiratory illnesses

Alberta’s Health Minister says help is on the way for children and two hospitals as the province deals with a rise in respiratory illnesses and increased patient intake.

“Help is coming,” Copping said in a news conference Monday.

“Our system is under strain, there’s no doubt about that. This is not just unique to Albertans children’s hospital(s). We’re seeing impacts across the entire country.”

Children’s hospitals across Canada have seen a surge in patients, including those affected by COVID-19, flu and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV.

On Saturday, Alberta Health Services (AHS) made the call to move hospice staff from Rotary Flames House to Alberta Children’s Hospital to deal with a surge of respiratory illnesses.

AHS says it will work together with families to discharge respite care patients by Tuesday, Dec. 6.

Health officials have said the Calgary hospital and the Stollery Children’s Hospital in Edmonton have been operating at or over 100 per cent of their normal capacity for the past month.

At the start of December, AHS set up a heated trailer outside the emergency department of the Children’s Hospital to help with the surge of patients.

AHS says the trailer will be used when the emergency department is at capacity and will be monitored in the same way as the waiting area inside the building.

Copping says there are signs the situation is improving in schools and hospitals.

“We may be hitting the peak of this current flu that’s circulating,” he said, adding data from schools shows student absentee rates are on a downward trend and wastewater data for COVID-19 shows it’s stable.

He said the province is still working to add resources to the health system.

The minister adds that there’s no plan to copy what’s happening in Ontario in postponing pediatric surgeries and bringing in outside agencies. The Canadian Red Cross is one such agency that has been sent in to help.

“We are not hearing any of that right now,” he said.

More resources for hospitals: AHS

Margaret Fullerton, senior operating officer at Alberta Children’s Hospital, said the hospital needs to be prepared for any changes.

“We do look to the east — Eastern Canada — and we know they are continuing to face that surge,” she said, “but we are hopeful that the influenza rates, the RSV rates will drop. We just have to be prepared in case that doesn’t happen.”

Fullerton said the hospital has been operating over capacity for most of November and into December.

“We’ll have times when we are at 120 per cent capacity and other times when we’re at 100 per cent capacity,” she said. “That ebbs and flows throughout the day, throughout the week and throughout the month

“Right now, we’re still at well over 100 per cent.”

Copping said the province is working on adding resources to the health system, but he hadn’t heard of any plan to postpone pediatric surgeries or bring in outside agencies to help.

Fullerton said they have redeployed about 65 full and part-time staff, including those from the respite facility and others from some outpatient clinics, to the hospital.

A total of seven surgeries have been cancelled this week, but she said there are another 160 scheduled to go ahead.

Related Stories:

• Alberta father speaks out about Rotary Flames House staff redeployment

• Calgary’s Alberta Children’s Hospital to use heated trailer due to surge of patients

• AHS temporarily freezes respite care at Rotary Flames House

Opposition NDP Leader Rachel Notley called the surge in pediatric cases at Alberta children’s hospitals alarming.

“These children need our help,” she said during question period.

Notley then asked Premier Danielle Smith what she would do to prevent pediatric surgeries from being cancelled.

“We already know that the wait in emergency rooms is way too long,” Smith said in response. “That’s part of the reason I appointed Dr. John Cowell as chief administrator (of Alberta Health Services), so we can be making these decisions in a very rapid way.”

Smith said she expects to have something more to say on the issue as early as Tuesday.