While the country waits for orders of hundreds of ventilators to arrive, the country’s top doctors are trying to reduce the amount we need to treat COVID-19.
Previously, Deputy Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Howard Njoo said Canada has around 5,000 ventilators and is ordering more. While places like New York State have announced they need tens of thousands of ventilators, Dr. Njoo says they hope to avoid that.
“What we’re planning to do is actually prepare the system so that we will never have that peak requirement for a certain number of ventilators at one time. As we’ve said, we want to flatten the curve, and therefore all the steps we’re taking across the country are aimed at that,” he explains.
Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Theresa Tam says work is underway to set up temporary hospital sites to handle surges of patients.
When asked about claims of medical professionals rationing or re-using supplies like masks and gloves, Dr. Tam says that’s not what’s happening.
She says if they seem more careful with their resources, it’s because they are trying not to waste them, a practice she calls reducing the “burn rate.”
“I think you’re seeing some of that practice going on preemptively because you can’t burn through a lot of personal protective equipment. So it’s the effort to preserve them as much as possible while we’re still getting some more,” Dr. Tam says.
Dr. Tam adds social distancing will also have to apply to religious holidays over the coming weeks.
