Province urges sick Manitobans to stay home ahead of holidays

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This article was published 23/12/2023 (624 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Provincial officials are pleading for the public to get vaccinated and stay home when sick amid a spike in patients presenting to Manitoba hospitals with severe respiratory infections.

The intensive care unit at Winnipeg’s Children’s Hospital has been particularly threatened by the surge, which comes as families across the province are preparing to meet for festive celebrations.

“We are seeing kids and we are seeing infants who are very sick and are in need of critical care,” Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said Saturday during a news conference at the Manitoba Legislative Building.

“Vaccines are just one step that you can take to protect yourselves and your families, and to protect our health-care system. Ultimately, when we’re talking about the health-care system, we are talking about ensuring that our sickest patients — people who are in need of critical care — are able to get that care where and when they need it.”

The health minister urged sick Manitobans to stay in their homes and avoid Christmas gatherings in an effort to quell the spread of infections and alleviate the strain on health centres, which are already over capacity.

Chief public health officer Dr. Brent Roussin assured the public officials are monitoring the situation daily, and have prepared contingency plans to ensure the health-system can continue to treat extremely sick patients.

One such plan includes the potential cancellation of surgeries, but Roussin stressed it is not something the province is considering at this point.

In the interim, recovery room nurses are being reassigned to intensive care units, and the province is asking health-care staff to consider picking up extra shifts over the holidays.

Efforts are also underway to improve patient-flow procedures and free up space by ensuring patients who do not require critical care are transferred or discharged.

The provincial government committed $2.75 million in November to hire additional allied health staff and hospital case co-ordinators in Winnipeg hospitals to expand patient discharges from five to seven days a week.

Roussin noted the number of ICU admissions remains below levels seen at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and are comparable to levels seen last November.

“But in saying that, we have so many capacity issues going into this respiratory virus season, so the strain is significant,” he said. “It’s concerning at this point because we have likely not reached the peak. We are likely going to see increasing numbers in the next number of days to weeks.”

The respiratory virus season is arriving roughly two weeks early this year, Roussin said.

The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority was tracking an average wait time of 7.5 hours across the city’s emergency departments Saturday afternoon.

The Grace Hospital and St. Boniface hospital saw the largest backlogs, with estimated wait times of 9.25 and 9.5 hours, respectively.

The Health Sciences Centre’s adult and pediatric emergency departments were marginally better, with wait times of 7.25 and 5 hours, respectively.

Roussin echoed Asagwara’s call for the public to ensure they are up-to-date with their vaccinations, wear masks and refrain from gathering if they are ill.

Both officials expressed gratitude to health-care workers for their ongoing dedication to patient care.

tyler.searle@freepress.mb.ca