TORONTO -- A Toronto critical care doctor is sounding the alarm on overwhelmed intensive care units as COVID-19 patients are transferred out of the Greater Toronto Area in order to manage capacity.
Dr. Michael Warner, medical director of critical care at Michael Garron Hospital, told CTV News Toronto on Friday that 12 patients on ventilators were being moved to cities as far away as Kingston in the face of increasing ICU demand.
"Some of these transfers are pre-emptive, certain hospitals get three or four new COVID-19 patients a day, so we need to make space, anticipating new patients," Warner said. "Other transfers are called rescue transfers, where there literally is no room at Hospital A and they need to move to Hospital B."
According to Critical Care Services Ontario, as of midnight Thursday there were 1,871 patients in provincial ICUs, including 401 patients with COVID-19, 38 of them new in the past day.
But projections from the COVID-19 Modeling Collaborative, a group of scientists and clinicians associated with the University of Toronto, University Health Network, and Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, is predicting more than 500 COVID-19 cases in Ontario ICUs by the end of the first week in April, and more than 600 by the middle of April.
Kingston Health Sciences Centre confirmed it had been receiving patient transfers, and said it expected to receive more critical care patients from other hospitals as the demand for beds swelled.
Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital, which opened in February to provide pandemic relief for other health care centres, currently has 29 patients in its 35 ICU beds and continues to take transfers.
Ontario Health Minister Christine Elliott insisted the province would be ready for any surge.
"We are not needing to use any protocols with respect to triage because we have been building capacity," she said.
But the Ontario Hospital Association insisted the province's critical care system is reaching a saturation point, and that unlike in the first and second waves of the pandemic, there would be more demands on local hospitals, limiting their ability to accept transfers from other regions.
"These levels are already well beyond the threshold at which hospitals can operate normally," president Anthony Dale said in a statement.
"If the number of ICU admissions continues to increase in the days ahead, as is expected, Ontario's hospitals will be under extraordinary pressure to try and ensure equitable access to lifesaving critical care."
The warning about Ontario's COVID-19 hospital capacity comes as the province is set to relax restrictions for regions that are still under lockdown.
Outdoor fitness classes will be allowed to resume starting next week, while hair salons and barber shops can reopen on April 12.
