So many people are dying of COVID in Alberta’s ICU wards that their passing is creating room for new patients. That’s the only good news coming out of what many have called its disastrous response to the pandemic, and which is actually ruinous.
In fact, doctors are now triaging COVID patients, making on-the-spot decisions as to who gets a ventilator and who doesn’t, and dies. Some of those choices will be made about children, age 5 to 11, who make up the fastest growing group of COVID patients. As one doctor said concerning these kids: “The curve is almost vertical.”
Another deadly irony here is that until last week Alberta had 173 intensive care beds in the entire province. But that number has suddenly risen to 368 beds. How? Operating rooms have been converted into ICUs. So thousands of surgeries are being postponed.
Dr. Ilan Schwartz, an Edmonton infectious disease specialist, said: “It’s absurd that we have hospital beds that are full, we are cancelling surgeries, we’re calling in the military, we’re transporting patients 3,000 kilometres in order to find them an ICU bed and we still have society going on as if nothing is the matter.”
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