Saskatoon hospitals continue to be overcapacity

Hospital beds in Saskatoon continue to be occupied by patients, but this isn’t just a result of COVID-19.

The head of the medical department at the University of Saskatchewan says overcapacity is a long-standing issue.

“We have been running anywhere between 30 and 40 per cent overcapacity in the last year and a half,” Haissam Haddad said.

With approximately 250 internal medicine beds between Royal University Hospital and St Paul’s Hospital, that percentage has a big impact on staff.

“When I say we are over capacity, in the last couple of days we have almost 100 patients overcapacity,” Haddad said.

Meanwhile, Greater Saskatoon Catholic Schools noted a moderate increase in absences in early April and leading up to Easter break, while there’s been increasing requests for rapid antigen tests by families.

However, COVID-19 might not be the only cause.

“Our fall was still low and we are just starting to see an increase in influenza activity over the last month which has included a number of outbreaks in long-term care homes,” said Susan Detmer, an associate professor at the University of Saskatchewan’s department of veterinary pathology.

In a normal flu season, Detmer would expect cases to be trending down instead of up and petering out by mid-May.

“Seventy-eight per cent of the activity so far this season in Canada has been in people 44 years old and younger so it is trending younger,” Detmer said. “We typically see more in older adults.”

Regardless of whether the flu or COVID-19 is making people sick, Haddad was hoping the changing seasons would ease some of the hospital pressure but that’s not the case.

“Whatever the weather is outside, we continue to experience this high capacity,” Haddad said.