Waterloo Region & Wellington County | February 01, 2022
Click here to read the Waterloo Wellington COVID Report for Tuesday, February 1, 2022 that local hospitals have committed to jointly providing on Tuesdays and Fridays.
The Ontario Science Table released new projections today, which indicate that the Omicron wave may be plateauing or in decline. However, hospitals in Ontario are currently caring for the highest number of patients with COVID-19 since the pandemic began in March 2020, a trend that is expected to be maintained as the province begins to re-open.
Waterloo Wellington hospitals continue to care for more patients than there are beds. Hospitals have partnered to transfer patients to where there is capacity to care for them- these transfers within and out of Region are still occurring. The number of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 remains high, as do the number of staff off because of a positive COVID-19 test result or an exposure. However, we are starting to see both of these numbers decrease over the last week. Today, there are 134 patients hospitalized in WW with COVID compared to 164 last Friday, and 273 staff impacted by COVID-19 compared to 390 last Friday. This is an encouraging trend, especially as hospital occupancy remains high, and the space and staffing requirements to resume surgeries will put additional demand on hospitals.
Revisions to Directive 2 released February 1 now enable hospitals to increase imaging to support diagnostics for patients. Other scheduled procedures will continue to be on hold as hospitals across the province and in Waterloo Wellington continue to redirect and redeploy resources to care for patients with COVID-19. This continued load from COVID-19 limits the ability to ramp up scheduled procedures.
“Our teams continue providing care for high numbers of patients with COVID-19. Nearly every hospital in Waterloo Wellington is also managing multiple outbreaks. If trends for Omicron and hospitalizations can continue to decrease, in the month of February, hospitals will hopefully move from focusing mostly on COVID-related care and urgent/emergent cases to bringing patients back into hospital for other surgeries and procedures,” says Lee Fairclough, president, St. Mary’s General Hospital and Waterloo Wellington hospital regional lead, COVID-19 response. ”I want to thank each and every staff member in local hospitals, from whom the demand for care never decreases.”
More Information:
Stephan Beckhoff
Manager, Public Affairs & Communications
Cambridge Memorial Hospital
sbeckhoff@cmh.org
t: 519-621-2333 ext. 2427
m: 519-654-8334
Cheryl Evans
Manager, Communications and
Engagement
Grand River Hospital
cheryl.evans@grhosp.on.ca
t: 519-749-4300 ext. 3880
m: 226-749-0689
Alison Armstrong
Manager, Communications and
Stakeholder Relations
Wellington Health Care Alliance
Groves Memorial Community Hospital
North Wellington Health Care
aarmstrong@whca.ca
519-843-2010 ext. 47614
Perry Hagerman
Senior Communications Specialist
Guelph General Hospital
PHagerman@gghorg.ca
519-837-6440 ext. 2774
Dayna Giorgio
Manager, Communications
St. Mary’s General Hospital
dgiorgio@smgh.ca
519-895-6540