Thursday, May 14, 2020
COVID-19 Status as of 10:00 am:
Tests performed yesterday (Assessment Centre and in Hospital) = 73
Tests
Performed total (Assessment Centre and in Hospital) = 3036
Presumptive Cases in Hospital = 16
Total Positive Cases in Hospital = 2
Positive Cases in ICU = 0
Patients in COVID-19 Care Unit = 9
Hospital Occupancy = 72.6%
Yesterday, President & CEO Jean
Bartkowiak issued an open letter to the Premier of Ontario and Minister of
Health about Pandemic Pay. Staff categories outside of those identified to
receive Pandemic Pay have gone above and beyond the call of duty to keep
Ontarians safe during this pandemic. In the letter, Mr. Bartkowiak applauds the
Pandemic Pay initiative, and implores the government to expand it to include
all health care workers, with the exclusion of Chief Executive Officers. The
letter is attached.
For the safety and protection of patients, their families, staff, professional
staff, and the community, visitor restrictions at our Hospital were implemented
at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Restrictions follow specific medical
guidance to reduce the spread of infection. In some cases, specific
restrictions are necessary to prevent groups of people (including patients,
essential care partners, staff and professional staff) from gathering in small
spaces like patient rooms. We recognize that some visitor restrictions in place
due to the COVID-19 pandemic are difficult for patients, particularly for new
parents, and we sympathize. In other cases, the recently increased restrictions
have inspired positive feedback and requests to keep them in place indefinitely
because they effectively reduce unnecessary traffic and risk of infection.
Recovery planning will include a thorough review and evaluation of recent and
previous visitor restrictions to determine the best future state for safe,
quality, patient and family centred care.
The Recovery team is grateful to those who have provided feedback and ideas.
All ideas and opportunities for a ‘new normal’ are welcome and captured for
evaluation and prioritizing. Some examples include virtual care and
simulations. Any ideas that are not feasible as part of recovery efforts will
be brought forward for consideration in the strategic planning process.
Staff wellness is key in recovery planning. We cannot recover and care for our
patients without paying attention to our staff and leaders. We acknowledge the
tremendous workload and stress Hospital staff and professional staff have been
under throughout this time. It is also recognized that we are planning to
recover during the summer months, when people traditionally take vacation. We
will need to balance the important need to address patient needs and mitigate
the growing burden of disease with the reality of our staffing limitations.
While we can’t make promises on what the plan will look like and what will be
required of all staff, we commit to engaging with you.
Recovery planning continues with teams reviewing and summarizing the Hospital’s
programs and services Current State Assessment submissions. Meetings with
Program Directors are underway to understand proposed plans, interdependencies
between programs/services and develop a proposed phased plan for service
resumption. An Ethical Framework guides decision-making and includes an Ethical
Triage Team that will also validate the phased/prioritized approach. The draft
phased plan will be reviewed/approved by the Incident Management Team next
week. This will be followed by more detailed planning with those
programs/services in Phase 1 to ramp up in the coming weeks. Our Hospital’s
recovery plan will be presented to Ontario Health for approval; we will need to
wait for Directive #2 to be lifted at a provincial level before non-urgent
surgical services can proceed.
We don’t yet know the extent of what it will take to address the backlog and
demand for service that exists. It is anticipated that beyond existing wait
lists/backlogs, there will be an increase in demand for services as the
economy, community and our Hospital resumes services. Activity underway now
will shed light on this and how we can plan to address it. We must understand
the constraints, including Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), drugs, and just
as importantly, staffing.
All previously issued COVID-19 Daily Situation Reports are available at https://comms.tbrhsc.net/covid-19-information/past-daily-updates/.
Please forward any questions/concerns to your supervisor.
_______________________________________________________________________
For questions about COVID-19 testing criteria, please contact the TBDHU’s
Infectious Disease Program at 807-625-5900 or toll free at 1-888-294-6630.
Local COVID-19 case status: https://www.tbdhu.com/coronavirus
Provincial COVID-19 case status: https://www.ontario.ca/page/2019-novel-coronavirus#section-0
Canada COVID-19 case status: https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/diseases/2019-novel-coronavirus-infection.html
COVID-19 Daily Situation Report videos: http://tbrhsc.net/covid-19-information
All Hospital COVID-19 updates are available on the iNtranet at https://comms.tbrhsc.net/covid-19-information/
