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MICs hospitals could ease the COVID-19 strain at others

If hospitals become overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients, the hospitals in Cochrane, Iroquois Falls and Matheson will asked to ease the pressure.

MICs Health Services Group CEO Paul Chatelain says his three facilities won’t be taking in COVID patients. They could, however, take transfers of patients who require a lower level of care.

“We’re an acute care hospital, but we don’t have an ICU capacity or can’t really care for complex critical care patients,” Chatelain explains. “But we would have that role. So it would free up beds for let’s say Timmins or Sudbury, etc.”

Even that, he says, will pose a staffing challenge.

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“We’re in a bit of a staffing crisis right now, so we may be 60% occupied, but if all of a sudden we’re 90% occupied, we need to have more nurses, more RPNs. So that’s really tough in the north.”

Any patients transferred in would be those requiring a lower level of care, or are waiting for placement in long term care, for instance.

At the request of the province, MICs is doing an inventory or how many beds it can offer.

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