Manitoban being treated in Ontario ICU dies

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This article was published 02/06/2021 (1753 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As the province announced the death of a Manitoba man in his 30s who was being treated for COVID-19 in an Ontario hospital, Alberta said it would care for as many as 10 patients to ease the crisis in Manitoba intensive care units.

The man died of COVID-19 Tuesday, after being transferred to an Ontario intensive care unit May 20, Shared Health said Wednesday.

Forty Manitobans are being treated for COVID-19 out of province and up to 10 more could be airlifted to Alberta as part of the new patient-transfer agreement announced Wednesday.

Hospitals in Edmonton and Calgary will take up to 10 Manitoba patients as needed. Alberta’s intensive care units have sufficient capacity to handle the extra patients, Alberta Health Services stated.

“We stand with the people of Manitoba right now,” Alberta Premier Jason Kenney wrote in a tweet.

Hospitals in Ontario and Saskatchewan have accepted critically ill ICU patients from Manitoba as hospitals in this province are overrun with COVID-19 patients. Over the past two weeks, 48 Manitobans have been transferred out of province.

On May 24, 31-year-old Krystal Mousseau of Ebb and Flow First Nation died, one day after an attempt to transfer her to Ontario. Her condition became unstable during the transfer and she was taken back to the Brandon hospital.

Seven other patients who were transferred have been brought back to Manitoba to continue their recovery.

Additional Manitoba patients were scheduled to be airlifted to Ontario Wednesday afternoon.

Considering Manitoba’s much smaller population, the per capita rate of hospitalized COVID-19 patients is double Alberta’s. Per capita, Manitoba has more COVID-19 patients in hospital now than Alberta did at the peak of its third wave three weeks ago. As of Wednesday, there were 294 COVID-19 patients in Manitoba hospitals, compared with 438 COVID-19 patients hospitalized in Alberta.

Manitoba’s ICU admissions haven’t reached their anticipated peak yet, and they are already higher than the highest rates Alberta experienced in the third wave, when adjusted for population size. At Alberta’s peak, there were 187 COVID-19 patients in the ICU. As of Wednesday morning, there were 127 patients in Manitoba’s ICUs — 69 of whom have COVID — and an additional 40 patients are being treated in Ontario and Saskatchewan.

Six more pandemic deaths, not including the patient who died in Ontario, and 267 new cases of COVID-19 were announced, raising Manitoba’s death toll to 1,062.

The provincewide test positivity rate was 11.5 per cent; 12.9 per cent in Winnipeg.

Of the new cases announced, 198 are in the Winnipeg health region, 28 in Southern Health, 21 in Northern Health, 14 in Interlake-Eastern, and six in Prairie Mountain.

Four of the six deaths announced Wednesday are linked to highly contagious variants of concern — mostly the dominant B.1.1.7 strain, but one variant death was unspecified.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @thatkatiemay