The president and CEO of Bluewater Health says the light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter in the battle against COVID-19.
Mike Lapaine told Sue Storr on CHOK (103.9 FM, 1070 AM) Tuesday morning that they have fewer COVID patients than a week ago.
Lambton Public Health reported three new confirmed cases early Tuesday for a total of 148 with the number of deaths remaining at 14 and 54 recovered, up from 50.
Lapaine said there are signs of optimism.
"The hospital has been fairly steady, and what we were concerned about two weeks ago, this was the time we could see a huge upsurge and we haven't really seen that," said Lapaine. It's been very stable. Actually, our COVID Unit has fewer patients in it than it did a week ago, so we're really hopeful."
Bluewater Health reported on its website Tuesday that there were 15 patients in hospital with the virus and 16 suspected of having it with tests pending. Chief of Staff Doctor Mike Haddad told Tuesday's online community news conference that, about two weeks ago, there were a total of 32 patients in hospital with COVID-19, including 7 in ICU on life support.
"Many of those patients have improved and went home, but we also have lost some patients along the way," he said. "As is being published, 50-50 per cent mortality rate when someone is ill enough to be in the ICU, so out of all of our ICU patients, half didn't make it. It has been a sad couple of weeks, but also we've had some successes."
Lapaine cautioned it's still going to take time and sacrifices from everybody are still required.
The hospital CEO said Bluewater Health is at about 65 per cent capacity and they're using that excess capacity to help long-term care and retirement homes.
"The most vulnerable populations are those in congregate settings like long-term care homes, retirement homes or other areas. So, what we're doing is focus on using the excess capacity in hospitals to support any long-term care homes to help manage or prevent outbreaks."
As of Tuesday morning, Sarnia's Landmark Village had 34 confirmed cases, eight staff and 26 residents, with six of the area's 14 deaths linked to the facility. The Lambton County-run Meadowview Villa had an outbreak declared last week when a staff member tested positive for COVID-19. No residents had tested positive at the Petrolia Line home as of Tuesday morning.
Lambton Medical Officer of Health Dr. Sudit Ranade told reporters Tuesday that they're monitoring area seniors' homes closely and have already taken a number of steps.
"A lot of restrictions and other things that would have been done only after an outbreak would have been declared have actually been done preemptively or proactively," said Ranade. "Those things were already done well before we knew that there were cases and they're already being done at all the long-term care homes and retirement homes."
Dr. Ranade said outbreaks evolve over time and the response has to be stepped-up according to what's happening.
-With files from Sue Storr and Colin Gowdy