HSN's Dominic Giroux urges northeast to stay vigilant in battle with COVID-19

The head of Sudbury's hospital says progress in keeping COVID-19 numbers low could be undone if people don't follow rules over the holidays.

Over the past month, hospitals in southern Ontario have seen hospitalization numbers more than double due to COVID cases.

"Currently there are no admitted patients for COVID-19 at Health Sciences North," said Dominic Giroux, CEO of Health Sciences North.

However, Giroux says they have been proactive in anticipation of flu season and a possible spike in COVID-19 numbers after the holidays.

A total of 40 temporary beds will be added to the hospital's Daffodil Lodge next month.

"So it's really important during the holiday season to follow the advice from public health," Giroux said in an interview with Morning North CBC host Markus Schwabe.

"Front line health care workers have put their own safety at risk through the pandemic to care for their neighbours, for their friends and the community. And it's important that the acute care hospital sector in the province be able to have the capacity required, in the new year."

Surgical waitlist going down

Because HSN hasn't had a COVID-19 patient since June, Giroux says they've been able to reduce the surgical waitlist that spiked up last spring. That's when the hospital had to cancel surgeries to make room for possible COVID-19 patients.

It's because the northeast community has been doing well with keeping the virus at bay that the hospital has been able to eliminate some of the surgical backlog, Giroux says.

"Our patients should not be concerned at this stage at Health Sciences North in terms of further rescheduling of surgical activity as unfortunately we had to do in the spring."

Despite the reduction in surgical volume, HSN still continues to be overcapacity with other non-COVID patients.

Northeast vaccine rollout

The province has announced 17 hospital sites that will be receiving the vaccine.

Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Center will get some of the vaccine from the initial rollout of 90,000 doses from Pfizer. Sudbury is not on that list, nor any other hospital in northeastern Ontario. 

Giroux says HSN has the ultra-cold freezers required to store the vaccine.

"This will not be a rollout like your typical flu vaccine for, for instance," he said.

The operational requirements are much more significant in terms of security, in terms of freezing, in terms of its infrastructure, and because patients will need to come twice for vaccination."

Giroux notes each vaccine has different operational requirements, different research consent requirements, and different clinical trial requirements. 

"This will be quite a complex operation led by a public health service district," he said, adding that more details will revealed, in terms of dates and location.

"That is the prerogative of the province and they'll make those announcements in due course."