Calgary's adult hospitals still under pressure, doctors and nurses say

Staff at Calgary's adult hospitals say their facilities are still under strain as they deal with a combination of staffing shortages, very sick patients and a particularly bad respiratory virus season.

The Alberta Children's Hospital has been forced to redeploy staff and reduce some patient care because it has been overwhelmed by influenza, RSV and COVID-19.

And health-care providers say adult hospitals have not been spared.

"We're also bursting and we're hurting," said Erin Boyd, a registered nurse at Foothills Medical Centre and vice-president of United Nurses of Alberta, local 115.

"All of our adult hospitals are struggling with capacity and acuity issues. And that's really being felt throughout almost every unit and department. There are just so many patients and they are much, much sicker than we've seen before."

According to Boyd, the hospital is so full they've started to use additional surge spaces over the last few weeks.

"These are just beds in hallways throughout the units. They don't have stuff like privacy or call bells ... We are just that desperate that this is what we've resorted to."

According to Alberta Health Services (AHS), the situation in adult hospitals is not as severe as the situation in pediatrics.

"Adult acute care sites in Calgary remain busy but are not experiencing the significant spikes in emergency department (ED) visits or admissions from respiratory illness that have been seen at Alberta Children's Hospital," spokesperson James Wood said in a statement emailed to CBC News.

Capacity at Calgary's four adult hospitals, he said, was just over 100 per cent as of Thursday afternoon.

At the Peter Lougheed hospital, Dr. Michaela Walter said they too have to put patients in non-traditional spaces, including tub rooms and hallways.

"When I see we're caring for patients in the hallway, I know things are bad ... We are trying to find spaces when there isn't space in the hospital," said Walter, a general internal medicine physician.

In addition to treating influenza, RSV and COVID-19, Walter said they're also seeing patients whose diseases have progressed because their care was delayed earlier in the pandemic.

"People are quite sick this year, for sure."

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According to Walter, a lot of adults who become sick with influenza are coming in with secondary infections such as pneumonia and sepsis. And some are previously healthy.

"It's all ages. I am surprised by the amount of younger people that are coming in unwell."

Capacity stretched but wait times down

According to Dr. Eddy Lang, the head of emergency medicine in the Calgary zone, the city's four adult hospitals are often running at 110 to 120 per cent occupancy.

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But Lang said ER wait times have eased in December and there are fewer admitted patients stuck in the emergency room because there are no beds available upstairs.

"While we've had, of course, occasional surges, and we've responded to those, the general trend is very encouraging, and as a result we're seeing reduced wait times. Fewer patients are leaving without being seen," he said.

"We sounded the alarm around the high number of admitted patients in the emergency department and the effect that it was having ... We were detecting certain time-sensitive diseases later than we should be ... And the system has responded."

Lang said there has been a lot of work going on behind the scenes in the last few months to help ease those pressures.

"There's been increased efforts to ensure the number of admitted patients doesn't exceed a certain threshold. Occasionally surgeries have been postponed to make room for emergency department patients and all efforts have been redoubled so that any patient upstairs on the unit who is ready to go home, goes home in a timely manner."

AHS said adult patient admissions at Calgary's four adult hospitals, while higher than the last two years, were just below 2019 levels for November.

According to the health authority, November's emergency department visits were also below 2019 levels.

"The hospitals are able to accommodate patients over 100 per cent of normal capacity at peak times. We continue to provide care to all those who need it," said Wood.