Cancer and heart surgeries postponed at the MUHC to free up beds as COVID-19 hospitalizations surge

As COVID-19 hospitalizations pile up in Quebec, some cancer and heart surgeries at the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) are being postponed to free up hospital beds.

With 427 more Quebecers admitted to hospital in the past 24 hours, staff across the province continue to look for space to treat them but many emergency rooms are exceeding capacity.

Inside the Jewish General Hospital, the special COVID treatment unit has reached full capacity for the very first time since the beginning of the pandemic.

People who tested positive in recent days are steadily showing up at the ER and the administration is running out of room and staff to treat them.

“I think people have to realize that an ICU bed is more than a bed is more than a room with a bed in it,” said Dr. Blair Carl Schwartz, attending physician at the Jewish General Hospital.

“In order to have a critically ill patient cared for, you’re looking at the critical care physicians, the pharmacists, the nurses, the respiratory therapists, the housekeepers to keep the room and the infrastructures and the folks doing the stocking. There's more to it than the physical bed.”

To make room, hospitals are now unloading semi-urgent cases. Surgeries that are not critical are being transferred or postponed, a move that frees up beds and staff and mostly affects non-COVID patients.

“So, we’ll say: what surgeries can wait and what surgeries can't wait? Look at the limited number of operating rooms that we have and try to make sure that we do it in both a fashion that causes the least harm to the general population, but also allows us to have the capacity to operate."

The MUHC is also cancelling or postponing heart surgeries and some cancer operations. Currently, at least 20,000 health-care workers in Quebec are temporarily off the job due to COVID-19, with another 50,000 away from work for other reasons, most of which include burnout.

“I was going home and had to isolate and just be by myself,” said Naveed Hussain, a MUHC nurse.

“It's a feeling that sucks because I want to be at work. I want to be able to help my colleagues. I want to be able to be a leader and be able to help others.”

NURSES BURNED OUT

The government has imposed a decree preventing nurses from taking time off, which is on top of their obligation to do overtime.

Their unions say this could be a recipe for disaster.

“Institutions have to understand if you're imposing forced overtime on the nurses today, is she still going to be in your institution a month from now? Two months from now?” said Natalie Stake-Doucet, a registered nurse and president of the Quebec Nurses Association.

Quebec reported a total of 2,133 hospitalizations on Friday, with those numbers expected to reach 3,000 by mid-January, according to the province.

Unvaccinated people continue to be overrepresented in Quebec's hospitalization statistics. Quebec Health Minister Christian Dubé has said unvaccinated people make up about 10 per cent of adults, but represent more than 50 per cent of intensive care patients. 

These are hospital admissions that could have been prevented, said Dr. Schwartz.

“Every time we see someone who made a conscious decision to not get vaccinated, that's just like one bit of our soul sometimes that I think just dies,” he said.

The pandemic surge means the Lachine Hospital emergency room will not be open overnight anytime soon. The hospital's ER has only been open from 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. since early November and was set to resume taking patients overnight. However, the reopening has been put off as too many health-care workers are sick. 

• Read more: Lachine Hospital ER to stay closed overnight due to COVID-19 outbreaks, lack of staff