Hospitalization: Have you reached the plateau in the Greater Quebec City area?

Dr. Matthew Simon, chief of intensive care at the University Institute of Cardiology and Pulmonology of Quebec (IUCPQ), believes that if it is too early to talk about remission, it is possible that a stabilization point has been reached in the number of hospital admissions.

The good news is that the upward trend in hospitalization is fading. If last week we saw 200 new hospital admissions per day, in the network, in the last four days we have been more than 100, 110 new hospitalizations.

« This leads us to believe that the momentum of the fifth wave is running out. She is not behind us yet. »

Same story at the Hôtel-Dieu de Lévis. The premise is that we are on a plateau. That’s what we’ve been observing for a few days, reassures Dr. Elise Berger-Pelletier, the hospital’s emergency physician..

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On Friday, new federal public health models suggested that daily hospitalizations would increase across the country in the coming weeks due to the Omicron wave, which is generating extremely high levels of transmission nearly everywhere.

We have increased our reception capacities in anticipation of the weekend, and opened another floor for regular COVID-19 patients. Other hospitals in the area have done the sameDr. Simon explains.

In Montreal, for example, the CIUSSS de l’Est-de-l’Île-de-Montréal is preparing to move to the fifth level of load separation, the highest level ever reached. 84 beds are currently occupied by COVID-19 patients, an occupancy rate of 28%. Level 5 load separation will start when patients with COVID-19 occupy 30% of the beds.

3200 occupied beds

On Saturday, the county recorded 96 new deaths as well as 110 additional hospitalizations. The number of beds occupied by patients is close to 3200 beds.

Legault’s government also expected this weekend to be the most difficult since the start of the epidemic in hospitals.

At CHU de Québec, 132 patients were hospitalized on Saturday morning, 27 more than last Saturday.

Return of the staff

The return of the staff also allows optimism. In CHU de Québec hospitals, 669 workers with COVID-19 have contracted the coronavirus or are prophylactically withdrawing. That’s 71 less than a week ago. We have more patients, but we also have fewer absent workerssaid Genevieve Dubuis, a spokesperson for CHU de Québec.

They have gone to great lengths to make themselves available. You see people coming back from their COVID isolation. With load separation and all other arrangements, we are present and will respond to the needDr. Simon adds.

However, the room to maneuver is too narrow, the doctor warns. We’ve been in this wave since mid-December. With schools open from Monday, we’re wondering what impact this will have.

With information from Marie-Pierre Mercier and Raphael Beaumont Drouin