Cornwall Community Hospital (CCH) continues to manage the latest wave of the pandemic caused by the highly contagious Omicron variant of COVID-19.

There are currently 45 patients with COVID-19 admitted at CCH, and nearly half of the hospital’s Critical Care Unit is currently occupied by COVID-19 patients. This is the most patients with COVID-19 to ever be admitted at CCH. Unvaccinated individuals continue to suffer from the most severe forms of illness.

The Omicron variant also continues to impact hospital staffing; as of January 17, there are 33 employees at home with COVID-19.

CCH is following the provincial government’s direction to postpone non-urgent activity, as required to free up resources, and has started to redeploy clinical staff to new areas where their skills are needed to ensure patients can continue to receive the care they need amidst staffing shortages.

Additional temporary spaces have also been identified to become care areas if needed, and hospital visitation has been restricted to the highest levels except for some exceptional circumstances.

“As the current COVID-19 situation continues to evolve, this wave is unlike anything we’ve seen throughout this pandemic at our hospital,” explains Jeanette Despatie, CCH President and Chief Executive Officer. “But our community can rest assured that we are implementing measures to address the rising number of patients, minimize the impact on our staff and ensure we can continue to provide care to our community,” adds Despatie.

CCH would also like to remind the community to be kind and respectful to frontline healthcare workers as staff and physicians are being confronted with more anger and inappropriate abusive behaviours from patients and families.

“Everyone is doing everything they can at this unprecedented time. Our staff and physicians have been working tirelessly, picking up more hours, being redeployed to new areas, falling ill, following extra precautions, and caring for more patients. When visiting the hospital, we ask that you treat our staff and physicians with respect,” says Despatie.