Admissions resume at children’s hospice and palliative care service in Calgary

Six weeks after pausing operations to redeploy staff to the nearby Alberta Children’s Hospital (ACH), Calgary’s Rotary Flames House is reopening admissions for respite care.

At the same time, Alberta Health Services (AHS) will be closing the six temporary, acute, short-stay beds at ACH that the Rotary Flames House staff and community physicians were supporting.

The changes take effect the week of Jan. 16.

ACH facility medical director Dr. Jennifer MacPherson said she hopes to admit their first patient back to Rotary Flames House as early as Friday after having to close it temporarily.

“We may even be able to take a couple of more children over the weekend,” MacPherson said. “This is a really positive turn of events for us.”

AHS said the need for additional inpatient beds and services at the children’s hospital is trending downward, allowing for the deployed staff to return to the children’s hospice and palliative care centre.

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MacPherson said ACH is still seeing “some significant strains” on the system, but can manage those with resources typically used during expected viral surges.

“Currently we’re sitting at below 100 per cent occupancy and this gives us the capacity to be able to take those admissions and put them in the regular parts of our hospital instead of the surge beds that we’d had to open during the peak of the viral surge,” she said, noting there is a bit of ICU space at ACH currently.

“We are grateful for the support of all redeployed staff, community and emergency department physicians and our core healthcare team for continuing to go above and beyond to support the needs of patients at Alberta Children’s Hospital,” AHS said in a statement.

MacPherson acknowledged the redeployment was a “significant stressor” on all staff who contributed to covering the recent surge.

Respite care admissions to Rotary Flames House were paused on Dec. 2, 2022, to accommodate a surge in admissions at ACH from respiratory viruses.

The week prior, both ACH and Edmonton’s Stollery Children’s Hospital reported more than 100 per cent inpatient capacity and a heated trailer was brought in to expand ACH’s waiting room.

MacPherson noted ACH has since seen a “significant drop” in influenza cases and a similar but not as marked decline in RSV cases, the two respiratory viruses that put predominant pressure on the hospital in late 2022.

“We know every year we have some degree of surge, we just haven’t had a year like this year where it exceeded our capacity,” the ACH facility medical director said. “We would like to put a plan in place.

“We will certainly be debriefing with all of the staff and the families who are involved and impacted by our decision to look at how we can plan for next year on an ongoing basis, as we certainly may see similar situations in years to come.”