Achi news desk-
COVID-19 statistics saw a spike in late April in Alberta — a development that one doctor says is putting even more strain on hospitals.
Cases increased by 21 per cent; the positivity rate increased by four percent; and the number of hospital admissions went up by 28 per cent compared to the week before the end of last month.
Although cases and hospitalizations are nowhere near as high as at the peak of the pandemic, an ER doctor told CTV News that Edmonton’s hospitals are still feeling the strain.
“We are overcrowded, under-resourced, struggling to manage as many patients as we can with limited resources, limited people, limited personnel,” said Dr Warren Thirsk, a doctor at the Royal Alexandra Hospital.
“I think the system is so over capacity and under-resourced that any minor stress has a magnified effect on us and everyone else. I’m not surprised we’re having a spike in COVID.”
Dr Thirsk says patients are suffering, waiting as long as 14 hours in “deplorable conditions.”
“We have traded resources for suffering. We have traded investment in the system for waiting times, and those waiting times bring suffering,” said Dr Thirsk.
He believes immunization is still the best solution to keeping COVID-19 as quiet as possible.
Adriana LaGrange, Alberta’s health minister, acknowledged the increase in cases Tuesday afternoon, but “it’s not a huge amount.”
LaGrange said her government and health officials are monitoring the situation in hospitals and the province has launched a spring immunization campaign for at-risk Albertans.
On Tuesday, the Opposition NDP asked the government to report COVID-19 data more frequently and make decisions with the advice of the province’s chief medical officer of health.
“We are worried about transmission in the hospitals, because that is where the cases are. And because there is overcrowding in our hospitals,” said NDP MLA Luanne Metz.
“We have to be paying attention to what the risks are and how this is going to spread.”
Seven hospitals had a case of COVID-19 on April 30.
With files from Chelan Skulski CTV News Edmonton
