For almost six days last week Red Deer’s non-emergency surgery patients were diverted to Edmonton or Calgary due to the high volume of cases and staff vacancies.
That was the second time in eight weeks that patients had to be diverted for the same reasons. Nine patients were diverted the weekend of Dec. 12.
Last week 14 emergent surgical cases were sent out of the Alberta Health Services (AHS) Central Zone during the temporary surgical diversion.
“We recognize that such diversions impacts our patients, and we regret the frustration and disruption such a step causes them and their families,” AHS said in a statement.
“This also impacts our surgical teams who are doing their utmost with finite resources to see as many patients as quickly as possible. Diverting patients is in no way a reflection of their efforts. We are grateful for the support and understanding of not only teams in Red Deer, but also those in Calgary and Edmonton facilities for their collaboration in ensuring patients receive the care they need.”
Red Deer orthopedic surgeon Dr. Keith Wolstenholme said there’s a good chance that surgery patients will need to be sent away again in the future.
“We’re not back up to that stage yet, but with our staffing issues, it wouldn’t surprise me at any time,” Wolstenholme said.
“It’s actually far more likely that surgeries will be diverted because of our staffing issues than it is for surgeries being diverted because of COVID patients filling up the hospital.”
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Surgeries last week — with the exception of emergency life or limb cases and those patients already admitted to the hospital – were diverted between 9 p.m. on Jan. 31 and Feb. 5. Patients already on the urgent surgical add list were also seen in Red Deer and the site continued with its reduced elective surgery schedules, but a small number of elective procedures may have been postponed.
Wolstenholme said Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre has a long history of surgeries being cancelled due to a lack of beds before COVID and during the first three waves.
“When our hospital capacity is stretched so tight to begin with, any reason for increased admissions threatens surgical access.”
He said the biggest bottleneck is a lack of nurses and anesthesiologists for the operating rooms.
“Our scheduled surgery patients are the ones really suffering, especially if they need overnight stays in Red Deer.”
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Red Deer COVID-19 cases continue to fall
Earlier this week Alberta’s vaccine passport came to an end, along with capacity limits at venues, except for those that host 500 people or more. Starting Monday, mandatory mask rules will be cancelled for children under 12 in all settings and for all children in schools.
Kenney has said more health restrictions will fall in the coming weeks as long as COVID-19 does not place renewed intolerable pressure on the health system.
The plan is to remove all indoor masking rules by March 1, along with capacity limits on large venues, mandatory work from home requirements and social gathering limits.
Wolstenholme said applying provincial hospital capacity data to Red Deer must be done with caution because the hospital regularly faced over-capacity issues prior to the pandemic. It’s unknown what the impact will be from lifting restrictions.
“What we would hate to see is that our limited surgical resources are diminished even more because we’re losing beds to COVID patients.”
— With files from The Canadian Press
This story was updated on Feb. 11 to include information from Alberta Health Services.