Bluewater Health's chief of staff issued a public plea Friday amid signs that COVID-19 is on the rise in Sarnia-Lambton.
There were two patients in the Intensive Care Unit Friday, and Dr. Mike Haddad said he doesn't like the trend of increasing COVID patients coming into the Emergency Department, which was evident Friday. As of Friday afternoon he said five had come to the hospital with three being admitted to the medical floor.
"Things are changing, I'm not surprised or shocked about it, but we are doing our best at the hospital to maintain our services still," said Haddad. "We don't want to cancel anything, and we do want to encourage anyone in the community to still come to the hospital if they need our care."
Dr. Haddad said capacity in the Sarnia hospital is at around 73 per cent, so they still have space but he wants to keep it that way as they continue to try to clear a backlog of elective surgeries and procedures cancelled during the first wave of the pandemic.
He said we've done well for the past several months to keep the virus at bay but he's concerned as we head into the holiday season.
"It's not a time for holiday parties, Christmas parties and things like this, I think it's going to get worse before it gets better. I know there's a light at the end of the tunnel, we have vaccines but that's going to take months and months before we actually get them and vaccinate the population," he said. "We want to avoid a lockdown in Sarnia, and stay like an island of some sort, not as bad as the other areas, but it's up to us now as a collective community to do our best to continue to do what we've been doing for the past few months, and maybe more."
Dr. Haddad said it's up to all of us to strictly follow public health safety measures to ensure Sarnia-Lambton's healthcare resources don't get too strained or overwhelmed.
The number of active COVID-19 cases in the county has nearly doubled in the last week, to 32 cases, up from 18 last Friday.