Internal memo sounds alarm on Calgary ER overcapacity amid flu season
Posted Dec 27, 2025 8:43 am.
Calgary emergency room facilities are significantly over capacity amid the peak flu season, according to a recent memo sent to acute care doctors across the city.
The latest flu numbers from the province show that from Dec. 14 to 20, there were 2,762 cases across Alberta, with 3,523 coming from the Calgary zone, and 1,635 people being hospitalized.
Along with highlighting overcapacity, the memo points to some of the struggles doctors are facing.
An emergency room physician at Rockyview Hospital echoed that statement.
“So, this is an exceptional year. This H3N2 variant that we have seen circulating through Canada seems to be more severe, and therefore people are getting unwell and need to come into the hospital, more so than previous years,” said Dr. Joe Vipond.
“It just makes our jobs so much harder to provide the good care we want to do.”
Alberta Health Services says the number of beds in acute care varies over any given day, adding there has been a significant use of overcapacity spaces to support the busy respiratory virus season, which is expected to continue over the next several weeks.
The Alberta government tells CityNews that it decided to make 336 surge response beds permanent during the flu season. Of those, 206 are now permanent, with another 130 set up during peak periods across the province.
“The usual pattern is that things do peak around the holidays or early in the new year, and they we have a gradual tailing off,” said Dr. Peter Jamieson, the medical director of Foothills Hospital.
Minister of Hospital and Surgical Health Services Matt Jones, meanwhile, says hospitalization data lags by a week, but a bulk of those cases are expected to be handled in the new year.
“If we get to early or mid-January, based on the information we have today, provided the forecasting holds up, that’s when we would be through the lion’s share of the pressure,” he said.
Jones added that Dec. 21 was the peak for influenza cases in the province, and Jan. 11 should be the peak for RSV.
