Stollery Children’s Hospital emergency provisions worry pediatrician: ‘This is unprecedented’

An Edmonton children’s doctor is worried it’s situation critical at the Stollery Children’s Hospital, where the ongoing surge of respiratory viruses in the community has prompted emergency provisions to be enacted.

On Tuesday, Alberta Health Services announced staff with previous emergency room, critical care, inpatient care experience or appropriate skills are being deployed to areas of greatest need and where their skills can be best utilized, to help boost additional surge capacity at the Stollery.

This could mean more staff in the emergency department, PICU, inpatient units or to support new capacity, including additional inpatient medicine surge beds.

The Stollery pediatric ICU is operating at about 100 per cent capacity and the rest of the hospital is experiencing sustained high volumes of acutely ill patients requiring care in the emergency department and inpatient units.

Along with her regular clinic duties, pediatrician Dr. Tesheen Ladha has volunteered to join the surge team at the Stollery ER to help manage the patient load.

She said two extra surge teams have been created above and beyond the normal teams that help admit patients.

“This has never happened before in my 10 years of practice and training before. We’ve never been asked to volunteer in those capacities,” she said one day after the announcement.

“This is unprecedented. This has not happened before.”

Ladha said it’s up to doctors whether they have the time or capacity to take on shifts working at the Stollery, “Because, of course, we’re also seeing patients in our clinics that are quite sick.”

The surge of patients has led to the hospital triggering emergency provisions.

It’s not a state of emergency per se — AHS said they don’t have those for individual sites — but rather, the Stollery’s medical director, Dr. Carina Majaesic, said activating the emergency provision allows the hospital to move workers around, gives physicians different accountabilities with the college and alters the hospital’s insurance policies so staff can work on wards they otherwise might not…