Alberta’s dire COVID-19 situation compared to B.C.’s fourth wave fight

CALGARY — As B.C. faces growing COVID-19 cases in hospitals, Calgary’s medical system is at a “boiling point” as it is overwhelmed by its own unvaccinated patients.

Alberta Health Services (AHS) postponed all scheduled elective surgeries and many outpatient procedures for the remainder of the week in Calgary.

This will allow staff to support intensive care and critical care beds within Calgary. Across the province, hospital capacity is at 87 per cent which means of the 258 intensive care beds available in the province, 147 of them are being used by COVID-19 patients. Of those patients, nearly 90 per cent of them are unvaccinated.

A group of Alberta physicians warned the medical system in the province is on the verge of collapse.

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Dr. Shazma Mithani, an emergency room physician in Edmonton, said a staffing crisis, overwhelmed intensive care units, and mixed messaging from the province has created a “dire” situation.

Her biggest fear, she said, is that doctors will need to triage patients should hospitalizations continue to mount.

“We don’t want to have to make these decisions where we’re choosing who gets to have (intensive) care or not. And we’re getting closer and closer to that every day,” Mithani said.

In B.C., similar concerns are being echoed by medical staff. The number of new hospital admissions is increasing, and almost all of them are unvaccinated.

The head of medicine at Royal Columbian Hospital says some elective surgeries have been delayed due to capacity amid a COVID spike in the Fraser Health region.

Based on data provided by the BCCDC, an unvaccinated person is 31 times more likely to be hospitalized if they contract the virus.

From August 31st to September 6th, people not fully-vaccinated against #COVID19 accounted for 77.8 per cent of cases and from August 24th to September 6th, they accounted for 85.9 per cent of hospitalizations. #bcpoli https://t.co/dO5d7VJWhw

— John Ackermann ???? (@jackermann) September 8, 2021

However, the provincial vaccination rates between the two provinces is showing a very different picture. Immunization rates for those 12 and older in Alberta is at 70 per cent, compared to B.C., where nearly 78 per cent are fully vaccinated. Only 55 per cent of adults between 25 and 29 years old in Alberta are fully immunized, an age population that has show an increasing compliance to vaccines in B.C. since the province introduced the vaccine passport.

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It comes as the cost of treating COVID-19 patients came to light Thursday. In Canada, a person with COVID-19 in intensive care on average costs more than $50,000 compared with $8,400 for someone who’s had a heart attack, a new report form the Canadian Institute for Health said. The high costs is due to the lengthy hospital stay associated with the severe symptoms of COVID-19, and takes twice as long to treat as a patient with the pneumonia. One out of every five patients in intensive care with COVID-19 do not survive.

Ann Chapman, interim director of health spending and primary care at the agency, said the report reinforces the economic consequences of a serious illness, though it does not include the cost for doctors.

With files from Hana Mae Nassar, Monika Gul, Josh Ritchie, and The Canadian Press