TORONTO (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 06th January, 2021) A hospital in the Canadian province of Ontario has announced that it will transfer overflow COVID-19 patients to hospitals over an hour away as the number of available hospital beds dwindles across the province and country.
As many as 20 patients from the Windsor Regional Hospital in the eponymously named city will be moved to Sarnia and Chatham-Kent, both of which are over an hour away, the hospital said in a statement.
"We anticipate as many as 20 patients may require transfer this week to our partners at Chatham-Kent Health Alliance (CKHA) and Bluewater Health in Sarnia," the Windsor Regional Hospital said on Tuesday.
The regional hospital's decision reflects a growing problem across the province and country.
A day earlier, the Joseph Brant Hospital in Burlington, Ontario announced that operations began at its field hospital - the first in Ontario and one of now several across the nation - as the Toronto-area hospital and others in the region become increasingly overstretched.
Additionally, the London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) in London, Ontario confirmed reports that it is bringing in a refrigerated trailer to store excess bodies after the medical facility's morgue filled up.
Speaking to reporters earlier in the day, Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam said that on average 4,000 Canadians are receiving in-patient care at any given moment, including 770 individuals in intensive care, up over 50 percent from a month earlier.
