H1N1 moves surgeries and stresses system
Updated: Mon Jun. 15 2009 17:55:46



There are at least 12 severe cases of H1N1 in the Intensive Care Unit at St. Boniface Hospital.

There is enough staff to care for them, but only because the WRHA has shuffled some surgeries to the Victoria General Hospital.

Some ear, nose and throat surgery, as well as plastic surgery will now be done at the Victoria General.

That frees up valuable critical care nurses from St. Boniface Hospital's recovery room to care for patients on ventilators.

"If you can reduce the number of surgeries being done at a site, you can use more of that post-op capacity. That was the purpose of moving them from St. Boniface," WRHA's Jan Currie said Monday.

The transfer of services is considered a State of Emergency under the Manitoba Nurses Union Collective Agreement. It means the WRHA can suspend or alter shifts and can assign nurses to work on different units or transfer them to another facility.

"For the most part nurses understand that this is what they have to do. We are in a crisis situation and they rise to the situation and they want to make sure that their patients get care, so they go," nurses union spokesperson Sandi Mowat said.

The Manitoba Nurses Union says its members are busy and tired, but are otherwise managing the added workload and disruptions to their schedule - at least so far.

If the situation stays the same or gets worse the province may have too seek help from other areas including Brandon or out of province sources.

The Manitoba Nurses Union is ensuring that all of its nurses dealing with H1N1 patients are being fitted for N-95 masks.

Those are the ones with special respirators.

When nurses go into an isolation room, they are to be gowned, gloved and masked and when they come out they take the gear off and put on a new set if they enter the room again.

Some nurses are also being given refresher courses on how to deal with patients in isolation.

With a report from CTV's Marni Kagan



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