In a memo obtained by CP24, the director of the Ontario Critical Care Management Centre, Andrew Baker, made the request to hospital CEOs on Wednesday, asking them for “urgent support in implementing critical care-related strategies aimed at managing significant stress on occupancy and available capacity, both in general and in particular the current and impending increase in pediatric intensive care demand’.
“The next 2-3 months are expected to bring significantly increased demands for pediatric critical care support that will be sustained and characterized by unpredictable increases that may occur with very short lead times,” Baker wrote.
From November 2, hospitals are directed to manage people aged 14 and over who need intensive care in adult ICU beds. Adolescent patients are usually referred to pediatric ICU beds.
The move, Baker said, will “create continuously available pediatric care capacity.”
He noted that the order would be reviewed every two weeks
Hospitals are also being asked to proactively create and maintain additional adult ICU capacity to accommodate traffic.
“We expect that (this) may require hospitals to manage their resources and may lead to the need to reduce surgical/procedure volume,” Baker wrote.
Children’s hospitals across the province have seen high patient volumes leading to longer than normal wait times for non-emergencies. They recently saw intensive care beds fill up to capacity.
CHEO, the children’s hospital in Ottawa, announced Wednesday that it is canceling some non-emergency surgeries, procedures and clinic appointments and reassigning clinicians to free up staff as it faces a “large increase” in patients this fall.
In the memo, Baker said the move will be “critical to preventing safety incidents and the current and pending increase in demand for pediatric services.”
“We also emphasize that these requests are temporary and will correspond to the projected increase period,” Baker added.
– with files from CTV Toronto and CTV Ottawa
