Hospitalizations are on the rise at Windsor Regional Hospital, but it's not all COVID-19 related.
This from Chief Nursing Executive Karen Riddell who says over the past couple of weeks there's been a higher than normal volume of patients coming into the emergency department.
Riddell says they're seeing a wide range of conditions like heart attacks, strokes and respiratory illnesses.
She says a major concern is a spike in paediatric cases.
"We are seeing a large surge in paediatric cases of respiratory virus. Again, not COVID. However, we are seeing a lot of very sick kids. We've had a number of kids that have been transferred out to Detroit, to London for a higher level of care. So that's concerning."
Riddell says COVID-related intensive care unit admissions are up as well with the majority of patients not fully vaccinated.
"We are starting to see a spike in COVID ICU admissions. So we have about 16 positive cases and out of those 16 cases, 13 of those are in the ICU. There's only two out of the 13 that are fully vaccinated."
She says maintaining hospital services could become challenging if the trend continues.
"Our biggest concern is obviously making sure that we can maintain our hospital services. So as our capacity is stretched that makes it more and more challenging to maintain doing elective surgeries and things like that. And what we're seeing with respiratory viruses in the community is concerning right now."
Riddell adds the best to to protect yourself from sickness is to avoid large holiday gatherings and to get your COVID-19 and flu vaccine — both are available at several locations across the region.
— with files from AM800's Mike Kakuk