COVID-19 patients needing intensive care that requires a ventilator could be transferred from the hospital in Shawville to Montreal, says Gilbert Daoust, Administrative Coordinator for Nursing at Pontiac Community Hospital.
“Every region is asked to put up some measures so they are able to receive some patients,” he said in a telephone interview with The Equity on Monday.
“And every region is supposed to have a plan if we are becoming overloaded with cases in our establishments,” he said. “We have 36 beds in the short term care unit, we have three ICU beds and we have six stretchers in the emergency department.
“We have areas in our hospital where we have a hot sector, a medium sector and a cold sector, and those are going to be managed by our people when patients show up.
“We have two ventilators, one transport ventilator in our facility, and I know they are looking at purchasing more within CISSO, and spreading them to all the facilities of the CISSO.
“So we could go up to three patients needing acute attention at a time,” he said.
Asked how many cases he anticipates seeing, he said it is hard to tell.
“If people listen to public health recommendations and we can maintain a curve that is not peaking drastically in the short term, our health care system will be able to provide and sustain what is going to happen.
“But if you’re asking me for numbers, I can’t throw numbers on the table, I am not an expert in those.
“As far as I am concerned, we have a very small hospital that will be able to take care of so many people, but if we’re overloaded, there’s a path that I can send some patients to other areas.
“Once they are intubated, and they are on a ventilator, if they are COVID-19 positive, we don’t keep them here, we transfer them. Right now, we would transfer them to the Jewish hospital in Montreal. If they become overloaded, it would be the Hull hospital,” he said.
