Fraser Health hospitals feeling pressure as COVID cases rise, elective surgeries postponed

NEW WESTMINSTER (NEWS 1130) – As new COVID-19 infections continue to climb in the Fraser Health region, we’re learning intensive care units are once again reaching their limits.

Extra health care staff are having to be brought into those units, and some elective surgeries are being postponed due to the rising number of coronavirus patients. This is similar to what we’ve seen at previous points of the pandemic.

“I think we are seeing the fourth wave happening now. It had kind of died down over June, July, and I think at one point in our hospital, we actually had zero COVID patients, which was really nice,” explained Dr. Gerald DaRoza, the head of medicine at Royal Columbian Hospital.

“I don’t think it’s necessarily as dire as it was in the very beginning, though some of that was compounded by not knowing, it was a new thing,” he told NEWS 1130. “Now that we’re able to pre-plan, I think we’re able to deal with bigger volumes a little bit better. That being said, it does feel like kind of the other waves where the numbers start to go up and you start to feel stretched.”

DaRoza believes if this trend continues, we will reach similar situations to those in the past when other patient care operations were impacted.

It was just five months ago that DaRoza spoke about the dire situation at Royal Columbian amid a previous spike in COVID-19 cases.

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Though B.C. had been able to bring its curve back down with high vaccination rates, it has since begun to trend back up.

DaRoza says things have changed over the past few weeks, with the continuing rise in cases now also coupled with a rise in hospitalizations.

“Royal Columbian Hospital is one of the three hospitals that takes critical-care COVID patients, and as far as I’m aware, the capacities at Abbotsford, Surrey, and Royal Columbian Hospital have started to be stretched with the number of COVID patients that are being admitted now that require critical-care support,” he said.

DaRoza estimates people battling COVID-19 make up about two-thirds of the patients in the ICUs at those three hospitals.

In the three hospitals mentioned, he says staff have had to create capacity to treat the COVID patients in need.

“In doing so, a lot of the resource issues become nursing staff and sometimes space, and sometimes you then have to borrow nurses, for lack of a better term, or health care workers and utilize spaces being used for other activities,” DaRoza explained.

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He says all three hospitals — Abbotsford Regional, Surrey Memorial, and Royal Columbian — have reduced capacity by at least one OR at each site.

“The goal is always to minimize the impact on surgical slates and stuff because we understand even if they’re not urgent surgeries, people have been waiting a long time. And we certainly don’t want to do so if we can possibly avoid it, but I think on a daily basis, we look at the surgical slate, we look at the critical-care capacity, we look at the COVID numbers, and then we have to make a decision for the next couple of days,” said DaRoza.

As we’ve been hearing over the last few weeks, unlike previous waves in the pandemic, most of the new COVID-19 patients we’re seeing land in hospital are unvaccinated.

DaRoza estimates about 85 per cent of the patients in the critical-care setting with COVID-19 are unvaccinated, and 75 per cent of patients in hospital who are not in critical care have also not been fully vaccinated.

“I do think, largely, this is a problem of the unvaccinated population. Unfortunately, that tends to be younger people in our community. So we are starting to see even younger people than we saw in the last few waves getting quite ill,” DaRoza said, noting that age range is in about the 20s to 40s.

He says many of them express some level of regret, adding it’s up to everyone to encourage those around us to get vaccinated if they can.

“I think there’s a lot of misinformation, there’s a lot of fear, and I understand that. But when you look in someone’s face and they’re getting sick or they need to get intubated and you hear them say, ‘I just wish I would have listened and got vaccinated’ … it’s just heartbreaking to see, honestly,” he explained.

“Our whole job is to try and prevent them from getting sick even before coming to the hospital. We just hope that people, in hearing that some people are getting really sick, really believe us and it motivates them to get vaccinated.”

Out of the 814 cases reported across B.C. Wednesday, most were in the Interior and Fraser Health regions.

So far, more than 85 per cent of eligible British Columbians 12 and up have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, while close to 78 per cent have been fully vaccinated.

Staffing issues grow as pandemic drags on

Meanwhile, DaRoza says as the health care system continues to feel pressure because of the pandemic, staffing is becoming a concern.

“The worse it gets, the more stress it’s going to put on the system, the more it’s going to decrease other medical activities. And I think the concern that I have, mainly, is the more stress it’s going to place on the system and the people providing the care,” he said.

“We’ve been fighting COVID now for more than a year and a half and, certainly, there is an element of burnout, especially amongst our healthcare workers, our critical care nurses, you know? We’re starting to run into issue with being able to staff these areas fully because people are tired.”

Anecdotally, DaRoza says some health care workers are retiring early or opting to take on easier positions not on the frontlines.

“Because of the stress of COVID, the workload, and also just the masking/unmasking. It’s not as pleasant of an environment to work in anymore,” he added.

“Overtime shifts, and then just getting tired, and then the lack of vacations, and travel, and everything. I think that also has a role to play. There are easier jobs to do than work in acute care hospital.”