Respiratory season volume keeps up pressure on city hospitals

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This article was published 08/01/2024 (629 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Intensive care admissions continue to climb in Manitoba as respiratory virus hospitalizations appear to have peaked.

Patient volumes at Winnipeg emergency rooms are closer to normal levels, after rising in December. However, pediatric and adult ICUs and ERs are still very busy and such volume continues to contribute to patient flow problems, Shared Health stated Monday.

Provincial vaccination rates against influenza and COVID-19 remain relatively low for the general population. Less than 24 per cent of Manitobans have received a recent seasonal flu shot; nearly 18 per cent got a COVID-19 vaccine or booster shot within the past six months.

By the end of last flu season, approximately 43 per cent of Canadians had received a shot.

Hospitals tend to get flooded with patients in late December and early January because of flu season. More than 2,000 extra patients per week show up to ERs with respiratory symptoms this time of year, said Winnipeg epidemiologist Cynthia Carr.

The easiest things members of the public can do to avoid putting pressure on the health system are to stay home when sick and get vaccinated, she said, but longer-term solutions to easing the health-care burden are much more complex.

“Viruses are really good at spreading. This is the time of year that it can really happen, and we just don’t have enough resources to react to thousands of extra visits a week coming through the doors at the emergency department,” Carr said.

Carr got a firsthand look Jan. 6 at the ongoing high patient volumes. She was advised by Health Links to go to a city ER to make sure there was no serious damage to her hip after a “freak accident,” just nine days post-hip replacement.

She waited on a stretcher, and within 10 hours had the results of a crucial X-ray.

Carr described a “very, very full” waiting room of patients, some of whom were elderly people who’d suffered falls. She heard repeated intercom announcements asking staff to stay late or pick up extra shifts, and witnessed staff preemptively apologizing to patients for the long waits.

“For the duration that I was there, I saw the nurses and health-care aides constantly on the move, dealing with patient needs and I felt bad for the number of times they kept saying ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’” Carr said.

“Because it’s not their fault, but it just shows their ongoing empathy and compassion for the patients, for the family members that are there. They genuinely are doing their best.”

The experience emphasized the importance of not only protecting oneself and others from the spread of illness, Carr said, but of making sure steps and sidewalks are cleared of snow and ice and elderly people have support at home.

“As much as I saw, clearly, people with respiratory viruses, I saw lots of injury and falls and that can be very serious for seniors.”

However. Carr encouraged people to still seek emergency medical attention when they need it, despite what may be a significant wait time.

The need to invest in community-based health programs and safe discharge plans for hospital patients, especially given the yearly strain flu season puts on the health system, is obvious, she added.

“What I observed, I wasn’t shocked, and it underscores the complexity of all of the moving parts in health care in Canada and how situations such as this (respiratory virus season)… can really push (the health system).”

Winnipeg ERs and urgent care centres logged a daily average of 781 patient visits over the past week. In December, the daily average was 807 patients.

About 15 per cent of adult ICU patients have respiratory symptoms and ICU patient volumes are still higher than normal, according to Shared Health.

More than half of the children in the ICU have respiratory symptoms, and the pediatric ICU at HSC Children’s Hospital is still running over-capacity. The daily average number of patients visiting the children’s ER over the past week is 133, Shared Health said.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca