CHEO accepts non-clinical help from Canadian Red Cross as part of response to respiratory virus surge

Article content material

In a viral season that’s introduced “unprecedented” affected person volumes resulting from influenza, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and COVID-19, Ottawa’s youngsters’s hospital is accepting some staffing assist from the Canadian Purple Cross.

Article content material

Beginning subsequent week, a small workforce of workers from the humanitarian group will likely be becoming a member of CHEO to help the hospital’s scientific groups, stated Tammy DeGiovanni, chief nurse government at CHEO, in a press release supplied to this newspaper Sunday.

Article content material

CHEO’s chief communications officer Anick Losier confirmed that the Purple Cross workers are non-clinical.

“To be clear, we didn’t ask for help — that is a part of the providers they provide and might shortly deploy,” she stated in an e mail. 

A spokesperson for the Purple Cross informed The Canadian Press there’s no agency begin date to the settlement.

In her assertion, DeGiovanni outlined efforts which were taken at CHEO to answer the triple hit of COVID, flu and RSV that has slammed hospitals throughout the nation: redeploying workers from surgical and medical care items; including further beds and employees within the hospital’s pediatric intensive care, emergency and inpatient items; and asking non-clinical workers to help scientific groups the place attainable. 

Article content material

“It has been all palms on deck at CHEO this viral season,” stated DeGiovanni, who added that the help “will permit a few of our redeployed workers to return to their common roles and guarantee Crew CHEO can present the protected, world-class care that our sufferers deserve.”

DeGiovanni stated CHEO has requested for “further help from organizations throughout the area to make sure our younger sufferers and their households get the care they want,” pointing to partnerships with pediatric hospice Roger Neilson Home, Ottawa Public Well being and different space hospitals, from Pembroke to Kingston, for workers, tools and affected person transfers.

This viral season has seen CHEO open a second intensive care unit to handle the overflow of critically ailing infants and younger youngsters and cancel some surgical procedures and coverings.

Article content material

In late November, it was introduced that the province has accredited funding to just about double the kids’s hospital’s ICU and significant care capability on a everlasting foundation.

DeGiovanni reiterated on Sunday the message that CHEO’s chief of workers, Dr. Lindy Samson, made earlier than Ottawa’s board of well being a couple of month in the past, when she pled with Ottawa residents to put on masks in crowded and indoor settings, get vaccinated and comply with different public well being measures to cut back viral unfold. 

“All of us have a task to play in defending our youngsters and supporting the devoted well being professionals who take care of them,” stated DeGiovanni.

With information from Postmedia workers and The Canadian Press