Niagara Falls, St. Catharines lead new COVID-19 cases as area hospitals limit surgery capacity

Niagara Health has reduced its surgery capacity by 70 per cent amid a continuing rise in COVID-19 cases spearheaded by high case counts in Niagara Falls and St. Catharines.

In effort to preserve resources for COVID-19 patients as they fill emergency rooms and intensive care units, Niagara Health announced yesterday they were winding down their surgical capacity.

On April 25 Niagara Region’s COVID-19 tracker reported 59 new cases, bringing the total of active cases up to 2,032.  Over all more than 39,000 Niagara residents have caught the virus, 534 of whom have died of it. Two more people were reported as dead on Monday.

More than half of current caseload is centred in St Catharines reporting 1,145 cases. Niagara Falls follows closely behind at 800 active cases. Rounding out the top three COVID centers is Welland at 582.

This continuing trend as yet to peak in Niagara Region hospitals however. ““We are not yet seeing peak activity related to this wave in the hospital,” said Dr. Johan Viljoen, Chief of Staff. “Hospitals across our region and beyond are facing similar pressures, which have led to the postponement of non-emergency procedures and temporary closures of Emergency Departments and Urgent Care Centres.”

Linda Bioch Executive Vice President, Quality, and Mental Health and Addictions and Executive Lead for Integrated Care stressed that tirage will continue saying, “We will use the same decision-making framework that we have used in previous waves to assess each case, understanding that emergency, urgent and oncology patient surgeries will take priority.”

“Surgeons and the scheduling office will reach out directly to patients who are impacted by surgical postponements to rebook the procedures at the earliest opportunity,” she said.

According Regional medical chief Dr. Mustafa Hirji said the move comes as hospitals exceed capacity. In a briefing Monday, Hirji said Niagara’s hospitals are at 107 per cent capacity, a five percent rise in two weeks.

This rise is exacerbated by the amount of health care workers in isolation as well with 327 workers out of action last week after potential exposure.

“This isn’t just matter of that there’s hospital beds, but hospitals might struggle with workers,” Hirji said, “I don’t know how much more our hospitals are going to be able to weather that storm.”

As result Niagara hospitals have cut their efforts to catch up on the surgical backlog caused by restriction over previous COVID-19 waves. They called the move “very unfortunate that we must ramp down surgeries again, knowing how important it is for patients to receive safe, quality surgical care on a timely basis.”

While Niagara Health encourages other health care options, such as a primary care physician, appointments can be booked online at Urgent Care Ontario.