Alberta's strained hospitals could struggle with a 6th wave, health-care workers warn

Alberta health-care workers are bracing for yet another wave of COVID-19, driven by the highly transmissible Omicron subvariant, and they're worried hospitals, which never fully recovered after previous surges, will be unable cope.

New cases, positivity rates, new hospitalization rates are all increasing five weeks after the Alberta government eliminated the vast majority of public health measures. Meanwhile, levels of the virus in wastewater have risen in some communities — an early indicator of a rise in cases.

The latest available weekly data shows new case counts, based on the province's very limited PCR testing, increased 27 per cent between the reporting period of March 15-21 and March 22-28.

"All of us have our breath held and our fingers crossed," said Dr. Paul Parks, president of the emergency medicine section with the Alberta Medical Association and an ER physician in Medicine Hat.

Parks said more and more patients are showing up in the ER with COVID, and there is trepidation on the front lines.

"Our staffing levels are as low as they've ever been. Everybody's depleted … and tired, and we haven't had that little bit of a break to catch our wind before another wave hits us," he said.

The problem is, hospitals are still catching up on a backlog of delayed surgeries. Patients who haven't had health problems addressed are now sicker, and the number of COVID patients in hospital remained high even as the fifth wave subsided.

The latest provincial data showed there were 964 patients in hospital with COVID-19, including 47 in intensive care, as of March 28. 

"By the time we see the hospitals overflowing … it may be too late to even mitigate that wave anyway," he said, warning it may be difficult to recognize the severity of a surge with Alberta's dramatically scaled back surveillance and reporting.

"That's a fear." 

"It is terrible," said Dr. Neeja Bakshi, an internal medicine physician at Edmonton's Royal Alexandra Hospital.

According to Bakshi, her unit has gone from having three or four admissions a week, two weeks ago, to seven or eight a day now, and there is talk of opening yet another COVID-19 unit at her facility, which is still operating at 120 to 130 per cent capacity.

"Things are really, really bad in hospital. They were not good already, and now we're just going to see this surge," she warned.

"If your loved one needs health care, the chances of them getting effective and efficient health care in a timely manner is very slim right now."