Alberta Children’s Hospital pivots amid capacity woes; schools also feel strain

The Alberta Children’s Hospital is at full capacity and making changes to deal with an overwhelming number of sick kids with respiratory illnesses.

On Sunday, families faced wait times of more than four hours to clear triage and, in some cases, up to 17 hours to see a doctor.

“We’re working very hard to reduce those wait times as much as we can and we really do appreciate how stressful it is,” said Margaret Fullerton, senior operating officer at the Alberta Children’s Hospital, during a media availability over Zoom.

Fullerton says the hospital is increasing capacity by opening spaces in other parts of the facility, including adding an extra bed to private rooms and fast-tracking some less serious patients so they can go home.

She says the hospital could also send teenagers to adult hospitals if needed. One already was over the weekend.

“We would only consider it when we get to a very challenging stage in, for instance in our ICU, that we would transfer a patient to an adult site and that right now, that is strictly on a case-by-case basis,” she said.

The children’s hospital is also dealing with staffing shortages as its workers get sick, so Fullerton said they are asking for all hands on deck and for staff to pick up extra shifts.

It comes before peak flu season hits and Canada has already declared a flu epidemic.

“It certainly looks like we’re approaching a peak and this is certainly a little earlier than we typically see an Influenza season peak,” said Dr. Karla Gustafson, medical officer of health for the Calgary Zone.

NDP health critic David Shepherd is calling on the premier, health minister and new chief medical officer to address the current health crisis.

“We are here to advocate for real solutions to end the chaos in our hospitals, to promote science that will help reduce the spread of illness and to ensure Alberta’s children can get the care and the medicine they need,” Shepherd said at a press conference Tuesday morning.

Alberta schools are also dealing with a spike in outbreaks and significant student and staff absences.

On Tuesday, Edmonton Public Schools held a special board meeting to discuss those issues.

It decided to ask for a meeting with the province’s chief medical officer, as well as the ministers of health and education, to get advice and clarify whether it can require masks when a school has a respiratory illness outbreak.

Meanwhile, the Calgary Catholic School District has temporarily moved two classrooms to online learning “due to higher absenteeism and operational challenges.”

“Our focus remains on supporting our students’ in-person educational experience. We will continue to review our response strategy and daily health practices to support this priority and keep everyone as safe as possible in our schools and workplaces,” the school board said in a statement.

The Calgary Board of Education is also considering moving some classes and even grades to online learning as it struggles to fill absent teaching positions.

“We did anticipate an increase in pressures, and have hired hundreds of additional substitute teachers and support staff to our roster. However, we are still finding it challenging to fill all requests,” CBE said in a statement.