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 highest number of COVID patients since the start of the pandemic. 150 people were hospitalized there, including 16 patients in intensive care.
Dr. Jean-François Shields, intensivist and emergency physician at the CHU de Québec, specifies that the length of stay for patients on respiratory assistance is approximately 10 to 15 days.
“People often go 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”, specifies the doctor.
Dr. Shields points out that he is increasingly concerned that he will no longer be able to treat all patients and that he will have 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 explains.
People admitted to intensive care in hot zones are also younger than during 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,” says Dr. Shields. It is about three quarters of people who are in intensive care who are not vaccinated.
He also specifies that very young people, without comorbidity, died. Others have survived, but 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 again 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,” insists Dr. Shields.
“A minority of the population seems to be saying ‘well no, vaccination is not for me’, but it gets angry, it tans, then it disgusts,” he believes.
With the reopening of schools, and hospitals that are more and more at the end of their rope, specialists are worried.
“Will it lead to an increase in cases if the circulation increases?” asks Dr. Shields.
-With information from Alain Laforest
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