The TVA Nouvelles team had privileged access to the hot zone, where patients with COVID-19 are treated, at the Hôpital de l’Enfant-Jésus, in Quebec City.
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On Tuesday, it was treating the largest number of COVID patients since the start of the pandemic, with 150 people hospitalized, including 16 in intensive care.
The Dr Jean-François Shields, intensivist and emergency physician at the CHU de Québec, explained that the length of stay for patients on respiratory assistance was 10 to 15 days.
“People often come back to the hospital, it takes 24 to 48 hours for them to have COVID complications, they need more oxygen, and then we end up admitting them to intensive care,” said doctor.
The Dr Shields said he was increasingly worried regarding not being able to treat all patients and having to put a prioritization protocol in place.
“A prioritization protocol is simple. It is you and your spouse who come to the emergency room with COVID. We have a bed available. Who do we put in palliative care? Who has access to intensive care beds? That’s what it means, a prioritization protocol,” he explained.
People admitted to intensive care in hot zones are also younger than those of previous waves. They are on average between 40 and 50 years old.
“What we notice a lot is that the clientele who is not vaccinated in intensive care is overrepresented and highly ill,” said Dr.r Shields. It is regarding three quarters of people who are in intensive care who are not vaccinated.
According to him, very young people, without comorbidity, died. Others have survived, but they remain with significant functional sequelae.
The rehabilitation that follows can be painful.
“When we remove them from the respirator, they do not start their normal life once more 15 days later. Most people, a year later, they haven’t returned to work. It’s not just the flu. It’s not just a cold,” insisted the Dr Shields.
“A minority of the population seems to say ‘well no, vaccination is not for me’, but it gets angry, it tans, then it sickens,” lamented the doctor.
Faced with the reopening of schools, and seeing that hospitals are more and more at the end of their rope, specialists are worried.
“Is it going to bring an upsurge in cases if traffic increases?” wondered the Dr Shields.
– With information from Alain Laforest, TVA Nouvelles