It’s been very good news as far as COVID-19 infections go in the areas served by Quinte Health Care’s four hospitals.
At a meeting of QHC’s Board of Directors, President and CEO Mary Clare Egberts congratulated hospital staff and the wider community for
taking restrictions seriously during the pandemic, noting there hasn’t been a new case of COVID-19 in either Hastings or Prince Edward counties since May 18. She also noted that Lady Luck played a role as far as low infection rates were concerned.
In recent weeks, the organization’s leadership team is focused on planning for a second wave.
“This virus isn’t going to disappear, we know we’ll be dealing with it for a year or maybe more. We have to learn how to live with it,” said Egberts.
Egberts said the team’s main goals are:
1: No Covid transmission at all at QHC hospitals.
2: Continuing to integrate “virtual care” and develop partner relationships to serve patients better.
3: Enhance timely access to care with a philosophy leading to becoming a “no wait hospital”.
The leadership team expects a “fall super surge”, which is described as a combination of seasonal flu and COVID- 19 infections to hit emergency departments with the colder weather.
Draft staffing plans are in the works for any “super surge” and space is ready to be utilized to add another 30 beds in hospitals should the need arise.
Meanwhile, testing for COVID-19 should be able to be done on site at Belleville General by the end of August. The testing equipment has arrived and is being set up. It’s expected the equipment will be able to do and produce results for a maximum of 400 tests per day.
On another front, the leadership team is considering an evolution for the Covid Community Assessment Centres that are in place in a handful of locations in the region.
For the past while the centres have been used to test people for the coronavirus, but they may be turned into facilities that assess not only for COVID-19 but for influenza and other upper respiratory diseases. The option of having flu shots administered at the centres is being considered.
As far as COVID-19 testing at the centres goes, almost 14,000 people have been tested with the positivity rate at less that .2%. The centres averaged 208 tests a day in July with results usually coming back within one and a half days.
Meanwhile, QHC Chief of Staff Dr. Colin MacPherson says services such as surgery and diagnostic imaging are gradually returning to normal after being seriously curtailed due to the pandemic.
“For both diagnostic imaging and surgeries we’re up to about 75% of normal volumes and we should be up to normal volumes by mid-August”, said MacPherson.
Clearing up the backlog caused by the pandemic will take time especially since it’s a complicated process as prioritizing patients with an eye to the seriousness of their illness or injury has to be considered.
