A total of 33 COVID-19 patients have been transferred to hospitals in Guelph, Waterloo Region and Wellington County over the past week, according to St. Mary’s General Hospital (SMGH) in Kitchener.
The hospital issued a release Thursday which also stated that Grand River Hospital (GRH) in Kitchener and Guelph General Hospital (GGH) took the lion’s share of the new patients which are mainly coming from the Toronto area.
Since April 22, GRH has received 15 patients from outside of the region with four of those heading into the intensive care unit while the other 11 were in need of acute care.
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GGH has taken in 10 others with five of the patients needing intensive care and the other five arriving in search of acute care.
“Regional hospitals are collaborating to care for the rising numbers of patients needing critical care for COVID-19 and maximizing our ability to open beds in our hospitals,” SMGH president Lee Fairclough said.
“As part of that system effort, regionally we have opened 25 additional ICU beds in Waterloo-Wellington in the past two weeks. This has required redeploying members of our teams in hospitals to support this care, and we are preparing to onboard others from outside the hospital as may be required.”
The hospital network, which also includes Cambridge Memorial Hospital and Groves Memorial Hospital in Fergus, currently has 85 patients in intensive care and acute units as a result of COVID-19.
Global News has asked SMGH how many of those came from out of region prior to April 22.
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