The COVID-19 pandemic may be nearing the end, but according to Quinte Health Care senior staff the repercussions will be felt for months and potentially years.
The board of directors met virtually on Tuesday afternoon and the common theme was dealing with what the future holds for QHC hospitals.
Board Chair Nancy Evans says it is impressive to watch the QHC team continue to look forward, while also being focused on what’s coming down the pipe.
“We’re seeing, and you see the data in the reports, the significant sort of tail effect of COVID, with whether it’s people affected by COVID itself but by not being able to have access to healthcare, or having their health situation become more pronounced.”
QHC President and CEO Stacey Daub agreed and stated COVID really exposed all kinds of gaps within the system, the community and QHC itself.
“When I think about what is facing the team ahead of us; it’s formidable. We’re trying to keep a good balance of focusing on the current and the pressures we continue to feel and quite honestly, the uncertainty.”
She said those in healthcare don’t get the luxury of feeling like COVID is over and they are trying to adjust and support people to make their lives easier despite the challenges they face.
Evans noted she is concerned that people’s attention is shifting elsewhere, but it will be a long time before QHC is able to put COVID behind them. Despite that, she is confident in the team to take them forward.
Dr. Colin MacPherson says the teams at QHC have been under a great deal of pressure and in recent weeks, things have been quite dynamic with a lot of moving pieces.
“We’ve been striving very hard to remain a high functioning team across the board at Quinte Health Care. So we’re trying to plan ourselves, to learn from our experience, and draft some new policies and guidelines around on how we might work better together.”
Board member Christian Sauvageau says the data for the region when it comes to COVID is not consistent with provincial trends.
He told the board while it looks like we are past the Omicron wave, they are projecting another wave of COVID cases because of the lifting of provincial health measures.
Sauvageau said in the last three months, they have seen a 30% increase in the number of cases in acute patient care. He says some of it is possibly related to COVID but people have also been waiting to seek care and are sicker when they come to the hospital, in addition to the staffing shortage side of things.
Susan Rowe noted they currently have 45 staff members out because they are COVID positive, in addition to those who are displaying symptoms of the virus.
