Manitoba mulls surgery cancellations as ICUs strain under respiratory illnesses

Intensive care units in Manitoba hospitals continue to be pushed to their limits by a surge in respiratory illnesses, prompting some surgical cancellations and possibly more, a provincial health official says.

"The numbers look like they're still rising. We haven't hit a peak or a plateau at this point," said Lanette Siragusa, CEO of Shared Health, the organization that oversees health-care delivery in the province.

"If we need to expand ICU capacity … we would have to look at maybe what other services that we're providing that we have to temporarily slow down, and that might be surgeries or it might be ambulatory care in the outpatient clinics."

There were a couple of surgery cancellations last week and that potential is still on the table, Siragusa says.

"We'll keep our eye on that and assess as we go," Siragusa said, adding that anyone whose procedure is postponed will be rescheduled as soon as possible.

Asked whether the province is considering sending patients out of province, she said "not at this point. We're not talking about that."

The rise in respiratory illness is being attributed to a cocktail of seasonal influenza and COVID.

Over the past couple of weeks there's been a spike in admissions at both the Children's Hospital ICU in Winnipeg as well as the four adult ICUs in the province, three of which are in Winnipeg — Grace Hospital, St. Boniface Hospital and the Health Sciences Centre. The fourth is in Brandon. 

"As it stands right now, we have 12 pediatric patients in the ICU as well as three others who are requiring critical care in different areas of Children's Hospital, and we are hovering around 100 adults [in] ICU," Siragusa said.

"We are managing that, which is a higher number than we are used to, and also preparing to expand for more. Over the holidays, because people get together and gather with their loved ones, there's potential that the virus will spread.

"So we are preparing for that to happen in the next week or two."

Last week, the province asked nurses with acute care skills to volunteer for overtime work during the Christmas holidays.

Siragusa didn't provide any numbers on how many nurses answered the call, only saying "some staff have responded and others have not."

Shared Health would prefer to keep the overtime voluntary rather than mandatory, "and so far we're holding holding the line and managing," Siragusa said.

"But it is continually stressful for staff when we know that the numbers [of ICU admissions] potentially could be coming up, so we're trying to be very proactive in making sure that we have the support available ahead of time."

Provincial health officials are urging people to get their flu and COVID vaccinations. According to the most recent report from public health, the average vaccination rate was 20 per cent — a little less for COVID and a little more for influenza, Siragusa said.

"There's definitely opportunity for more uptake," she added.