Bluewater Health patients are waiting up to eight hours in the emergency department for an appropriate bed to become available at the Sarnia site.
Chief of Staff Dr. Mike Haddad said patients are sick and need to be admitted, and they're doing their best to look after the patients already admitted to discharge them safely.
He said they haven't been able to meet their goal of transferring a patient, from the ER to a bed, within two hours recently.
"We had been hovering at about three and a half hours for a few months, which is not too bad actually, much better than many hospitals in the region or the province to be honest with you," said Haddad. "Having said this, in the last couple of months, we've doubled to eight hours."
Haddad said the transfer flow is compromised because the "inpatient units are supersaturated."
"Currently we have 266 admitted patients in the [Sarnia] hospital, which is 89 per cent of the beds. On the medical side, we're over capacity at 115 per cent, but 19 of the 266 [patients] are positive for COVID. So, it's a small segment of the patient population and many of those are not necessarily here due to COVID, we just discovered they are testing positive. Some are here due to it, so it's a bit of a different dynamic than when [the pandemic] started."
Haddad said staff are working overtime to "keep the system afloat."
"What we're finding now, is that COVID by itself, an infection of it, doesn't necessarily lead to that direct lung damage that we saw before. But, it seems to cause decompensation of preexisting medical conditions more easily. Someone, let's say, has COPD or emphysema, they get COVID, they get short of breath and they end up in the ER."
In Petrolia, Haddad said there has been a slight increase in ER admissions due to service disruptions in neighbouring communities.
Dr. Haddad expects the next few months will be difficult as temperatures drop and more people are inside.
"We are doing our best to handle the volume," said Haddad. "But, we will have more pressure this fall and winter season, so we need everybody's help. The way they can help us is by getting their flu shots, and COVID boosters, pneumonia shots and everything else that is needed as primary prevention so they don't require in-hospital admissions so we can maintain our other services too."
Dr. Haddad is strongly encouraging the vaccines for individuals over the age of 60 who are at greater risk of serious illness from the infections.
"The fact that the majority of the population, more than 90 per cent, is vaccinated and at least half of those are boosted does help and the fact that the Omicron variant of it is not as deadly as the previous one also helps."
Wait times exceeding 20 hours have recently been reported at London Health Sciences Centre.
Longer than usual ER wait times have also been reported at the Children’s Hospital in London.