Both campuses of Windsor Regional Hospital are operating well above 100% capacity.
The hospital held a news conference today to share the situaition with the community.
Standing in front of a live tracking screen showing the status of the Met and Ouellette campusses, CEO David Musyj pointed out this has been ongoing since around Christmas.
He says it has been a struggle to find places for patients.
"Luckily we've been able to find and spread across the 2 campuses in different areas where we're able to add beds 5 here, 6 here in order to create capacity but we're at a point where we've maximized that and also on a sustained basis maximized our staffing," says Musyj.
He says the over-capacity is at the stage where operations are being cancelled.
Chief of Staff Dr. Gary Ing says this is a major challenge for the hospital.
"It's almost like a perfect storm, everything just hit and hit us hard in this region not to say it didn't hit the rest of the province, but in our situation we have very limited resources to begin with and now we're stretching beyond 10% and 15% of our capacity," says Ing.
The biggest factor for the increase in patients is a the flu, compounded by several outbreaks at seniors residences.
Musyj says they are running at more than 50 patients without a bed and staff are working overtime. He adds it's a situation that's taking place across the province and they've reached out to the Ministry of Health for additional resources.
Musyj says there is extra space available at the Tayfor Campus which isn't being used at the moment. Musyj feels that may be an option for overflow patients.