Rotary Flames House reopens after staff help Calgary children’s hospital

Calgary’s Rotary Flames House is getting its staff back after a surge in illnesses caused a deployment of staff to the Alberta Children’s Hospital.

The children’s respite and end-of-life care facility is set to return to service on Monday.

As a result, AHS says it will close six temporary medical acute short-stay beds starting on Jan. 16.

Dr. Jennifer MacPherson, Alberta Children’s Hospital’s medical director, says the facility expect to take in patients as early as Friday.

“We’re hoping to be able to admit our first patient back to Rotary Flames, and we may even be able to take a couple of more children over the weekend. So this is a really positive turn of events for us,” MacPherson told reporters Friday.

In early December, Alberta Health Services (AHS) temporarily closed the Rotary Flames House, pausing respite care admissions and sending 20 staff to the children’s hospital, all while “palliative care continued to be provided.”

Numerous children’s hospitals across Canada also saw a surge in the number of patients due to COVID-19, the flu, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).

Read More: Alberta father speaks out about Rotary Flames House staff redeployment

However, MacPherson says with service needs “trending downward,” staff from the respite facility can return to their roles.

“Currently, we’re sitting at below 100 per cent occupancy and this gives us the capacity to be able to take those admissions and put them in the regular parts of our hospital instead of the surge beds that we’d had to open during the peak of the viral surge,” she said.

“We are seeing … essentially still some significant capacity strains on our system. But we can manage those with the resources that we typically use at this time of year when we have expecting viral surges.”

She says that while influenza was the main cause of the overload of patients, RSV “took over” and was the reason for the many submissions at the time.

The hospital is also going to monitor RSV and other respiratory cases to ensure the respite facility does not close again.

“In making this decision, we have to really look at our numbers and make our best-educated guess that we won’t have to do this again,” MacPherson said.

“So we would like to put a plan in place. And we will certainly be debriefing with all of the staff and the families who are involved and impacted by our decision to look at how we can plan for next year on an ongoing basis.”

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Health officials have said Alberta Children’s Hospital and Stollery Children’s Hospital in Edmonton had been operating at or over 100 per cent of their normal capacity in November and December of 2022.

“We understand this temporary pause in respite services was concerning and difficult for our clients and families,” said AHS in a statement.

“These are extraordinary times, and we thank Albertans in advance for their support and understanding.”

Respiratory illness cases tripled in Nunavut to 635 in 2022 from pre-pandemic numbers. Meanwhile, two Ottawa hospitals are seeing an increase in patients in the second week of January.