Overburdened Red Deer hospital forced to airlift COVID-19 patients to Calgary, Edmonton

Critically ill patients are being airlifted out of Red Deer Regional Hospital as doctors and nurses from its various departments are recruited to care for patients on ventilators due to spiking COVID-19 cases in central Alberta.

COVID-19 hospitalizations in Red Deer, Alta., have jumped 62 per cent (from 83 to 134 cases) and ICU admissions are up 31 per cent (from 16 to 21 cases) over the past week.

"Nothing like this has happened before. We're on the precipice of not being able to provide appropriate care to people," said Dr. Mike Weldon, an emergency room physician who works at the hospital in Red Deer, a city of about 101,000 people, roughly midway between Calgary and Edmonton.

The hospital had been battling bed shortages for years prior to the pandemic. Now physicians who work there say it's in a crisis.

"Over the weekend, sick patients that needed ventilators that normally would have stayed here are being shipped out to Calgary, because we don't have any room left," said Weldon.

According to Alberta Health Services (AHS), 24 patients have been sent from the central zone to Calgary and Edmonton since Sept. 1, because of COVID-19 capacity issues.  

An AHS spokesperson told CBC News in an email that the agency is doing everything it can to make sure there is sufficient capacity to meet patient demand at critical-care facilities like the Red Deer Regional Hospital.