Children's hospital (CHEO) in Ottawa asks community for help
Dr. Lindy Samson, Chief of Staff at CHEO discusses the current state in Ottawa where the hospital is seeing more children than ever before requiring care. ( youtu.be ). H/T: @NPoushinsky 🧵1/
Dr. Lindy Samson, Chief of Staff at CHEO discusses the current state in Ottawa where the hospital is seeing more children than ever before requiring care. ( youtu.be ). H/T: @NPoushinsky 🧵1/
The overwhelming majority are having difficulties breathing, fever, and challenges because of viral respiratory infections. In the decades Dr. Samson has worked at CHEO, she has never seen anything like this before and is really worried. 2/
She is now asking for the community's help and support so that the kids in our community can get the care they need. "While we are doing everything we can, it is not enough." ( youtu.be ) 3/
"If we care about our kids and if we want our kids who need healthcare to be able to get the care they need, when they need it, in a timely fashion, where they need it so they don't have to be sent out of the region so they can get it as quickly as possible..." 4/
"...we all need to step up and rally behind them. What CHEO is asking today is for our great community to put our masks back on whenever we are in a crowded indoor space, including schools. It is time to put our masks back on and stay home when you are sick." 5/
CHEO is used to seeing RSV, influenza, and now also COVID infections but right now they are "all coming together in a perfect storm" so now admitting many children with these and other viral infections. 6/
On Sunday, there were 250 children who came to the Emergency Department (ED) needing care which is only set up to see 150 children per day. 7/
On Monday morning there were 10 children who needed to be admitted to the hospital, most of whom because they were having difficulty breathing. These children were stuck in the ED waiting for a bed to become available for them to move up to. 8/
While they were receiving care, it was certainly less than optimal. The inpatient medical service broke a new record with more than double the number of patients admitted to medical wards CHEO would normally see and they are set up to handle, the majority with viral infections.9/
The Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) where the sickest children go and most need support for their breathing or the amount of oxygen in their blood was at 186% occupancy. 10/
That meant the hospital needed to postpone significant surgeries that required intensive care afterwards and some children needing that degree of care had to be sent hours away from Ottawa to the next available PICU to be treated. 11/
"We are all hands on deck. We are doing everything we can to help and manage this. We are preparing to open another intensive care unit and we are moving any staff with clinical front line experience to those areas that are most in need." 12/
"It is not ok for a family to wait 20 hours in the ED before they see a physician. It is not ok for a baby who needs help with their breathing because of a viral infection to wait up to 48 hours in our ED before getting a bed on a unit." 13/
"It is not ok for our nurses to extend shifts and pick up extra shifts again and again and still have us be in an emergency situation. It is not ok for children and youth awaiting surgery and appointments to have them postponed..." 14/
"...because we have had to reassign staff and pool resources for those that are most sick. It is not ok for our doctors to have to choose which of two children that both require urgent surgery can be done today because we simply only have room for one." 15/
"One thing we have learned over the past 2 years is that masks actually help and work to help us stop the spread of viruses." ( youtu.be ) 16/
"I think we need to get back to the principles that we know work in any crowded indoor space, whether it is the grocery store, our work environment, gatherings we are having with family and friends, and also including in our school environment." 17/
Part of the reason why every community needs to come together to do what we can to ensure we have capacity is because this same thing is happening all across Ontario (including SickKids in Toronto) and all across North America and many parts of the world as well. 18/
That also means we cannot rely on other communities at this time to help us. The President and CEO of SickKids in Toronto also warns of the current situation there and asks that everyone mask indoors and stay home when sick ( ). 19/
Dr. Pirzada an Emergency Physician in Toronto points out that if you are an adult without kids and don't think this hospital crisis impacts you... ( ). 20/
...a 6 month old baby struggling to breathe will get the last critical care bed over an adult with a heart attack every single time 21/
We know that fresh air, ventilation and filtration (including masks) all reduce the risk of transmission and infection for respiratory viruses and continue to work no matter how much viruses mutate and evade immunity. 22/
You can learn more about how respiratory viruses transmit and how to protect yourself here ( ). 23/
Also available as a one page web link that is easy to share outside of Twitter ( pingthread.com ). 24/
Dr. Moriarty points out that if 80% of people masked by Feb. 3 we could liberate 54,000 hospital beds in Canada and prevent 4,000 deaths ( ). 25/
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