Outbreaks of influenza, COVID-19 and other respiratory viruses affecting children are putting the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) under so much pressure that they have to call on the Cross-Canadian Red for help.
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The organization will deploy administrative staff throughout the week to facilitate the work of the CHEO teams, who can focus on looking after the children.
The Ottawa hospital complex, along with children’s hospitals in Quebec and the rest of Canada, is facing a worrying surge in sick children this fall.
“We have transferred staff to the nursing and surgical departments, added new beds and manpower to the pediatric intensive care unit, emergency room and inpatient unit, and asked non-medical personnel to support the medical teams where possible,” CHEO said Sunday.
In addition to the Red Cross, several hospitals and organizations in and around Ottawa are also helping by lending staff or accepting patient transfers, CHEO said.
The deployment of Red Cross workers in a hospital to relieve staff is reminiscent of the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the organization lent a hand in several facilities. On the Quebec side, no Red Cross team had to be deployed this fall, the organization confirmed on Sunday.
Quebec Health Director Luc Boileau will hold a press conference on Monday to update on the current situation.
Pediatric flu
After two years marked by COVID-19, the influenza carried by thousands of cases of H3N2 influenza is significantly increasing the crowding of emergency rooms in children’s hospitals, and at a rate not seen in a long time, we can den Latest data can be found in the federal government’s Influenza Watch Bulletin.
Thus, in week 47 of November 20-26, 223 children under the age of 16 were hospitalized because of the flu in the country. This compares to an average of 11 children hospitalized for the flu in the corresponding week of the five flu seasons before the pandemic (2014-2015 to 2019-2020).
Children are proportionally the most represented patients in hospitals due to the flu, with 707 hospitalizations, including 95 in intensive care, among children under 16 since the start of the season.
In general, 0-19 year olds account for 50.8% of the 14,385 laboratory-confirmed cases of influenza since late August. 0 to 4 year olds alone account for 18.1% of influenza cases.
“The highest cumulative rate of hospital admissions through week 47 was in children under 5 years of age (41/100,000 population) and adults over 65 years of age (33/100,000 population),” the Bulletin underlines.