Interior Health doctors are finalizing their pandemic plan as they brace for a possible onslaught of coronavirus cases in the region.
Three more COVID-19 cases in the Interior Health region were confirmed on Thursday afternoon, bringing the total to a dozen.
The health authority won’t say where these patients are, citing privacy concerns and arguing that every person in every community needs to be prepared.
“We don’t want to create a false sense of security by announcing cases in one community and not in another,” Interior Health Medical Health Officer Dr. Silvina Mema said.
Although hundreds of COVID-19 tests have been done in the Interior, many people with symptoms won’t actually be tested, Mema said.
The only people currently being tested in the region are health care workers, people in long term care facilities, patients hospitalized with respiratory diseases and clusters of people who might be infected, for example, from a gathering, Mema said.
Everybody else is being told to stay home if they show any symptoms, she added.
“We were submitting all the tests to the B.C. CDC in Vancouver, and now we have capacity to test individuals here in Kelowna, so the turnaround time, the time it takes for us to get a result, it’s much faster now,” Mema said.
“So we can know within hours or a day of individuals that are symptomatic and immediately isolate them.”
Dr. Nick Balfour, Interior Health’s executive medical director, said hospitals in the region are preparing for a possible spike in the number of patients.
“This is an unprecedented event in our current times, and recognizing that, we are doing everything humanly possible to make sure that we are as prepared as we can be for what is coming,” he said.
Kelowna General Hospital, a place that is often at 100 per cent capacity or greater, was at just 93 per cent on Thursday morning, Balfour added.
“As an emergency physician that has been here for 20-plus years, I can tell you that’s phenomenal,” he said.
“I think people are getting the message: to come when you need to come, but to give us the space to do the work and to help us focus.”
He also said a lot of acute care sites are experiencing much lower emergency department visit volumes.
Balfour said Kelowna General Hospital is increasing its intensive care unit capacity.
“We’re looking to increase our intensive care unit capacity, so we’re opening old wards and purposely equipping them so they can manage the patients they expect to see,” he said.
Balfour said that at Kelowna General Hospital there’s now a special area for patients with respiratory symptoms, and they’re identified at the front entrance before being triaged into that area.