With respiratory illness on the rise, so are wait times at the Alberta Children’s Hospital in Calgary.
On Monday afternoon, the wait time was sitting around four hours, but that doesn’t represent the extraordinarily long times some patients have been seeing – and officials say we might not have reached the peak just yet.
“We are experiencing an early start to the respiratory illness season and a steep rise in the number of patients in emergency,” James Wood, a spokesperson with Alberta Health Services, said.
“We expect to see winter peak levels over the next few weeks.”
“The numbers may be higher than in recent years due in part to the rebound of common infections that have been suppressed over the past two years. We are seeing an early and steep increase in influenza activity in Alberta with 146 hospitalizations due to influenza since late August; 13 of which were admitted to intensive care units (ICU).”
Of these hospitalizations, 46 have been in children under nine years old.
Since the surge, there have been more than 300 daily visits to the children’s hospital emergency room — compared to about 180-220 prior to the recent surge.
The Stollery Children’s Hospital in Edmonton is also seeing surging wait times and high patient loads.
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To help combat the crowding, AHS said several steps are being taken.
“We are taking action at both children’s hospitals to ease pressure and improve access to care. At ACH, we have opened the site command post to support our frontline teams,” Wood said.
“We are working to open our short stay unit on weekends and are looking at other areas within the hospital to provide care and assessment for ED and other inpatients.”
Pediatric ICU’s at both ACH and the Stollery are close to 100 per cent capacity and officials said they may have to exceed 100 per cent of normal beds.
AHS is also asking that only one caregiver accompany a child to the hospital.
While workers try to keep wait times down, Dr. Stephen Freedman with the University of Calgary noted staff are feeling the pressure.
“We are not happy with it. We are doing everything we can and our staff, our nurses have been amazing and everyone is trying to provide new solutions every week to manage all the children and the volume in acuity,” said Dr. Freedman.
“It is a struggle because, everyone is working at their maximum.”
With the high number of illnesses, AHS is urging parents to get their children vaccinated with both influenza and COVID shots.
They’re also asking parents to continue with good infection control such as hand washing and staying away from others when sick.
Not on the list of AHS recommendations? Wearing a mask.
School officials estimate more than three quarters of Edmonton’s public schools have seen recent absenteeism rates above 10 per cent, enough to trigger an AHS investigation into an infectious disease outbreak. About 10 per cent or more of students in Calgary have been absent in recent days.
Despite the clear medical evidence masking works to help prevent the spread of respiratory illnesses, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith reiterated Monday the province will not permit any further masking mandates of children in Alberta’s K-12 education system.
Instead, Smith commented on the wait times on Monday and noted she’ll do “everything she can” to get children seen by medical professionals as soon as possible.
She also said she’d work to address the children’s medication shortage that has left parent without children’s acetaminophen and ibuprofen since the summer.
“I’m going to do what I can to make sure that they have the medications that they need and that if, heaven forbid, anyone needs to go to the hospital, that they are not waiting an excessively long period of time to get their child seen,” Smith said.
Opposition NDP leader Rachel Notley shared a screenshot on Instagram Monday from the Alberta Health Services hospital wait times website, showing the ACH wait time exceeding 15 hours.
NDP health critic David Shepherd said he’s calling on the UCP to implement an emergency action plan to properly staff both the Alberta Children’s Hospital and the Stollery to reduce wait times.
“Seventeen hours is simply nowhere near acceptable,” Shepherd said.
“These are children. They are sick. They deserve access to health care.
“Their parents should be able to acquire the medicine they need to reduce their pain and they should rest assured that there is capacity at their local hospital should things take a turn for the worse.”
— With files from The Canadian Press
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