Hospitals in Niagara, Hamilton, and the Burlington areas are preparing for a spike in COVID patients by coming up with a plan.
All hospital emergency departments in the areas will treat patients suspected of having the virus, patients who do not require hospitalization will be discharged and receive follow-up care.
Patients who test positive and require hospitalization will be cared for at one of four designated hospitals- which are the St. Catharines Hospital, Hamilton General Hospital, Joseph Brant Hospital and St. Joseph's .
Norfolk General and Brant will continue to provide local COVID-19 care, and may transfer COVID-19 positive patients as needed to designated hospitals.
As part of the strategy, Joseph Brant Hospital's Pandemic Response Unit will be a regional resource to provide
care for COVID-19 patients. The Unit is an external all-season structure at Joseph Brant designed specifically to care for stable COVID-19 positive patients who have mild to moderate symptoms and require care and support that cannot be provided at home.
Niagara Health President Lynn Guerriero says their team worked very hard to resume services that were paused due to COVID-19, and this week we expect to be at 100% of our prepandemic volumes.
She says this partnership will ensure the hospitals in our larger region are ready to respond to additional COVID-19 activity while minimizing the impact on our regular operations.¨