Health official says Brampton Civic hospital experiencing capacity issues
Published November 6, 2020 at 4:48 pm
From incidents relating to “hallway health care” and Brampton’s healthcare system in dire need of additional funding, it is an understatement to say that hospital overcrowding is a great concern during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Today, Dr. Naveed Mohammad, President and CEO of William Osler Health System, told inbrampton.com that William Osler is having challenges and that Brampton Civic is experiencing capacity issues.
According to Dr. Mohammad, both Brampton Civic and Etobicoke General hospitals have a high number of COVID-19 patients.
“Fifteen are occupying our ICU beds. We also have close to 55 patients waiting for COVID test results. Any other time that we face any sort of a capacity issue, we can put 2-3 patients in a room or semi-private room, but each COVID patient— we have 115— can only occupy one room each,” said Dr. Mohammad.
Dr. Mohammad went on to explain that each of these patients must be isolated separately.
“On a Friday, we’re having a capacity issue,” he said. “People already socialize on weekends and we have a few holidays coming up. We’re worried that this is just the beginning of a difficult time for the hospital.”
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At a November 4 conference, Peel’s Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Lawrence Loh also expressed his concerns over the high number of COVID-19 cases in Brampton and stated that hospital beds were “starting to fill up.”
“Much of this activity is localized in Brampton and while Peel Public Health is still contact tracing, our capacity is increasingly being challenged,” said Dr. Loh at the conference.
“So far, patients haven’t overwhelmed ICUs, but hospital beds are starting to fill up.”
Today (November 6), it was announced that the Region of Peel will be moving into the ‘red zone‘ of the province’s COVID-19 colour-coded system due to the continued uptick in COVID-19 cases.
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