Not yet out of the woods, recalls an intensivist

The pressure continues to be excessively strong on hospitals in the Quebec region at a time when the province is gradually deconfining.

In the Capitale-Nationale region, another 222 patients infected with COVID-19 were receiving care at the start of the week, according to the National Institute of Public Health of Quebec.

This is about forty less than the record of 266 hospitalizations shattered two weeks ago.

“There is clearly an improvement, but it is not very drastic. It’s more than we reach a plateau phase, ”says Dr. Alexis Turgeon, intensive care specialist at the CHU de Québec.

To put things into perspective, there had never been more than 150 patients hospitalized at the same time during the previous four waves.

Load shedding maintained

In the establishments of the CHU, the needle of the load shedding has not moved. Hundreds of surgeries are still postponed each week while thousands of consultations cannot be done in the clinic. Due to COVID-19, 430 employees and doctors are absent.

“We currently have a reopening in a context where we have a lot more hospitalizations […] compared to the reopenings that took place during previous waves. The context is different. We have a different variant, but above all we have a sociopolitical context which is different, which probably enters into the equation”, analyzes Dr. Turgeon.

According to him, the government is trying to maintain the fragile balance between the population’s adherence to health rules and the protection of the health system.

He finds it “reassuring” to see that the deconfinement will be done in stages, but warns that we must avoid the trap of believing that “everything is under control”. He invites the population not to lower their guard and recalls the importance of vaccination, while community contamination is clearly still widespread.

Encouraging signals

Despite everything, some signals allow to be encouraged. In Quebec, the University Institute of Cardiology and Pulmonology has returned to level 2 of its operational deployment plan, even if up to 30% of cardiac surgeries are still offloaded per week.

In Chaudière-Appalaches, hospitalizations fell by 21% in two weeks. The CISSS has decided to resume certain hospital activities previously suspended as of this week, “partially and gradually”. Stage 3 load shedding is still in effect.