CORNWALL, Ontario – The Cornwall Community Hospital (CCH) states that they continue to manage the latest wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The highly transmissible Omicron variant of the virus has lead to the highest number of COVID-19 patients admitted to the hospital since the start of the pandemic.
As of Monday, Jan. 17 there were 45 individuals admitted to the CCH with COVID-19. According to the hospital half of their Intensive Care Unit (ICU) capacity is currently occupied by COVID-19 patients.
There are 33 employees of the CCH who were at home with COVID-19 on Monday.
“As the current COVID-19 situation continues to evolve, this wave is unlike anything we’ve seen throughout this pandemic at our hospital,” said Jeanette Despatie, CCH President and Chief Executive Officer. “But our community can rest assured that we are implementing measures to address the rising number of patients, minimize the impact on our staff and ensure we can continue to provide care to our community.”
The CCH has postponed non-urgent procedures and has redeployed clinical staff to help cope with shortages.
They have also identified surplus spaces that can be made into care areas as needed. Hospital visitor restrictions are also in-place limiting the number of visitors coming into the hospital except for exceptional circumstances.
“Everyone is doing everything they can at this unprecedented time. Our staff and physicians have been working tirelessly, picking up more hours, being redeployed to new areas, falling ill, following extra precautions, and caring for more patients. When visiting the hospital, we ask that you treat our staff and physicians with respect,” said Despatie.
The hospital also asked that members of the public be respectful to their staff members, who they say are seeing a rise in abusive behavior from patients and family members of patients.
