The president and CEO of Bluewater Health says everyone is very tired, but he expects the toughest two or three months of the COVID-19 pandemic are still to come.
Mike Lapaine made the comment in an interview with Sue Storr on CHOK (103.9 FM, 1070 AM) Friday morning.
"This is difficult to say because everyone is tired and everybody has put up with a lot of sacrifice over the last nine, ten months," said Lapaine. "But unfortunately the next two to three months will probably be the toughest two to three months in the entire pandemic for us. We're hopeful, vaccines are on the horizon, and come spring we might start to see some relief on that front but we do believe that we still have to double-down for the next two to three months."
Lapaine said hospitals are taking a regional approach in response to rising COVID-19 numbers, and they've received a handful of patients from other regions. He noted hospitals in the Windsor area, that's in lockdown, are partner facilities with Bluewater Health and as such, Sarnia will help out if capacity is available.
He said the trends in intensive care units across the province are alarming, and ICU capacity locally was an issue this past week.
"Although we only had three COVID in-patients this week, we had an extremely busy week. There were several of our units that were over capacity. We have 14 beds in our ICU and there were a couple of days this week we had 13 patients out of the 14 which gives you no room to maneuver."
Lapaine said they don't want to have to start cancelling procedures again as was the case last spring, and they're still trying to clear the backlog that accumulated during that time.
He said it's more important than ever that the public remains vigilant when it comes to masking, handwashing and social distancing, and limits social interaction over the holidays.
-With files from Sue Storr
