Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children says cancelling surgeries that allowed staff to redeploy to its jammed intensive care unit has saved lives.
The head of the I-C-U, Doctor Steven Schwartz, says the difficult move to cancel surgeries recently has paid off as the hospital deals with a surge of young patients with respiratory illnesses.
He
says it allowed the hospital to implement a team-based care model that shifts away from its one-nurse-to-one-patient model.
The specialized nurses from surgical units now work with an I-C-U nurse as they care for three patients or more.
Schwartz says it has come at a steep cost to other children who need surgeries but now have to wait longer.
He says the I-C-U is still running overcapacity, as it has for the past month.
The hospital is preparing for the surge of respiratory patients to last until March.