THUNDER BAY – Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre could receive up to five COVID-19 intensive care unit patients from neighbouring Manitoba.
Hospital president and CEO Dr. Rhonda Crocker-Ellacott on Thursday said they’ve already admitted three patients transferred from Ontario’s provincial neighbour to the west, and could take as many as two more in the coming days.
Northern Ontario hospitals, including Thunder Bay, Sault Area Hospital, North Bay and Health Sciences North are expected to take as many as 20 patients through Shared Health Manitoba, which on Wednesday said there were 131 patients in provincial ICUs.
The pre-COVID ICU capacity was 72 beds.
The province on Thursday announced 402 new COVID-19 cases, as well as four deaths.
“We’ve been working together with Manitoba Shared Services and with our Northwestern Ontario hospitals to collaborate and provide some support for intensive care over-capacity needs in Manitoba,” Crocker-Ellacott said on Thursday afternoon.
“The fortunate part is given the low case counts of COVID-19 in our region, we are in the position that we can provide additional capacity and supports to Manitoba in their time of need.”
Crocker-Ellacott said an incident command structure has been set up, chaired by Dr. Michael Scott, the medical director of the intensive care unit at Thunder Bay Regional, to co-ordinate any future transfers.
“He identifies which hospitals across the whole north have capacity and capability to take ICU patients in order to help Manitoba with their surge,” Crocker-Ellacott said.
“We’ll take our first five and then it will move down the road to whomever has the capacity capability and staffing to support the next few transfers will take (them) and we’ll do that in a co-ordinated way until we reach our max capacity within the north – and then there’s a potential for it to go further if there’s still a need in Manitoba.”
Crocker-Ellacott said her hospital has limited intake to five patients in order to be able to offer timely care to those living within their catchment area.
“The idea is we wouldn’t want it to impact care and services to those living in Thunder Bay or in Northwestern Ontario. In no way is accepting these five patients impacting care within our community and within our region.”
Thunder Bay Regional on Wednesday announced it had four COVID-19 patients in hospital and two in intensive care. The overall hospital capacity was at 80 per cent.
