The third wave of the outbreak in Ontario is fierce, with more than 4,000 new cases diagnosed daily and more than 1,200 cases per day in Toronto, which is both alarming and worrying.
However, what we see every day are just cold numbers. Local health care workers are really in the eye of the storm of this epidemic, fighting this terrible virus with patients all the time, and also experiencing the suffering of patients and their families.
Recently, a Chinese-American health care worker from Humber River Hospital in Toronto told a WeChat group about the situation at her hospital, and we might want to look at it together to better understand how critical the situation is for patients and hospitals, and how many families and healthy people have been devastated by the epidemic.
The medical nurse said, “It’s been crazy busy, starting at 7:30 a.m. and no time to sit down all day.”
She is personally responsible for 10 ICU patients, and the hospital, which originally had 48 ICU beds, has increased to nearly 70 and still is far from enough.
Many people are transferred to other hospitals every day. In this situation, there are still 20-30 patients who were originally in the ICU and are forced to be placed in general wards.
Obviously, a hospital with more than 100 ICU patients is far beyond the capacity of the hospital.
She then recounted the situation of two patients who had just been intubated on ventilators, which was heartbreaking to watch.
“One was a 39-year-old female patient who was told to call her family before intubation, and the doctor also called her husband, who then cried on the phone ……”
“Another 33 year old male patient, also on a ventilator. His wife came to see him today and asked how her husband contracted it, and the wife said she contracted it because her child went to school and then infected the whole family.”
“There are too many examples of this kind of infection in the whole family. I have seen many ICU inside, father daughter, wife husband, mother children infected between, only one serious family, that the whole family is likely to be very serious. We’ve seen too many cases where the whole family has died.”
She added that hospitals are now pathetically understaffed, with only 9-10 respiratory technicians in her hospital, but half the hospital’s patients are new crown patients, and “simply can’t manage.”
She said that everyone is welcome to forward the message to let their loved ones and friends know how serious the epidemic is now.
In addition, she also advised everyone to wear two layers of masks when they go out now, preferably with a face shield, because the more infectious variant of the virus is so much easier to transmit than the regular COVID19.
She also reminded people not to just look at the death figures, some newly crowned patients with severe disease, even if they survive, will have very long-term complications and do not return to the way they were before they got sick, and some do not fully recover and are even hospitalized again.
With too many patients, not enough health care staff, and tragedies that keep repeating themselves, I believe this Chinese health care provider’s experience is definitely not the only one.
CP24 also reported yesterday that the head of York’s Mackenzie Health Hospital has issued an urgent appeal to doctors to stand ready to do more to help avoid a “total collapse” of the health system as a result of COVID-19.
This internal hospital memo paints a bleak picture of the continuing response to the third wave of the outbreak, and is very similar to the postings of Chinese health care providers.
In the memo, Dr. Steven Jackson, associate director of medical programs at Mackenzie Health, said, “It is clear to everyone that the health care system is under more stress than ever before in response to the third wave of the epidemic.”
“Our intensive care units, emergency departments and internal medicine wards are overwhelmed. Those who have experienced this challenge have gone above and beyond expectations, and we really should commend them.”
Similar appeals have been made in recent weeks by physicians from other hospital networks around the Greater Toronto Area.
A memo sent to William Osler Health System staff last week said the hospital urgently needs additional help from physicians and needs 100 doctors from different departments to assist in the ICU unit, including doctors from surgery, anesthesiology, pediatrics, emergency medicine and family medicine to help with 12-hour day and night shifts in the intensive care unit.
The new crown epidemic has been going on for more than a year, and I hope that each of us will continue to take the epidemic seriously, to be heavily protected, to get vaccinated as early as possible, and to ease the burden of health care workers waiting to get through the day of the epidemic.
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