The province has set its sights on a parking lot in central Hamilton for a potential pandemic response structure to house patients in the event of a third wave of COVID-19.
Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS) says it is “assessing” the Wellington Street parking lot by the Hamilton General Hospital as a potential site to create some additional temporary inpatient capacity.
“At present, we are only at the planning stage and assessing the lot for its potential use,” said Wendy Stewart, public relations specialist at HHS. “The Wellington Street parking lot was chosen because of its proximity to other HHS facilities, including the Hamilton General Hospital.”
It’s being planned as a provincial resource and, if it goes ahead, would have the capacity for up to 80 hospital-level beds.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Health did not have details immediately available on Friday afternoon.
During a town hall for staff and physicians on Thursday, HHS staff said the structure could be in place by the end of April, if necessary.
“It is intended to be a place of last resort if we saw inordinate bed pressures across our province,” said Sharon Pierson, executive vice president of clinical operations and chief operating officer for HHS.
“We are looking for those lower acuity medicine-type patients, should we need to use the structure, that could be COVID or could be non-COVID.”
She added that there are more questions than answers right now, as the process is still in its planning phase.
On Monday, Hamilton’s emergency operations centre director Paul Johnson said no role has been determined for the potential site and that the public should not expect it go up “in the next couple of days.”
“I think it’s fair to say at this point, it’s still being discussed as to exactly how that would roll out,” Johnson said.
“So it’s not going to be implemented immediately and exactly its role within the community.”
Other temporary pandemic response structures have been built in the region in an effort to provide extra capacity for hospitals, should the volume of COVID-19 in-patients exceed pre-existing capacity limits.
One of the biggest is the pandemic response unit at Joseph Brant Hospital (JBH) in Burlington, which was built in April 2020 but didn’t begin admitting COVID-19 patients until this January.
That unit will switch gears and be used as a vaccination clinic for Halton Public Health, beginning March 12.
“We will continue to work closely with regional and provincial health partners to monitor the evolving situation and assess local risk, including the possibility of a third wave,” said the hospital on its website.
“JBH is prepared to respond to another surge in cases and if needed, shift the vaccination clinic to an alternative space onsite in order to quickly transition the PRU back to providing COVID-19 care in a matter of hours.”
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