Behind the Scenes in St. Joe’s Intensive Care Unit (ICU)
May 6, 2021
“It’s overwhelming,” says Jenny Lo, Registered Nurse in the ICU, describing the pressures in this third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Ontario hospitals and particularly intensive care units have been hit hard.
“Our teams in the ICU are doing an unbelievably phenomenal job, with tremendous resilience and courage,” said Cheryl Williams, Executive Vice President of Clinical Operations and Chief Nursing Executive at St. Joe’s.
St. Joe’s entered wave three of the pandemic with 27 funded Level 3 ICU beds in one area. Today there are three ICU areas operating 41 beds at the hospital’s Charlton campus. Like many hospitals in the region, St. Joe’s is following provincial direction to accommodate patient transfers to relieve pressure in GTA hospitals. More than 60 COVID-positive patients from outside Hamilton were transferred to St. Joe’s since January 11, 2021.
“Numbers are one thing, but it’s a lot different when you’re living it,” said Dr. Mark Soth, Chief of Critical Care at St. Joe’s. He recognizes the ICU team’s challenges in coordinating highly complex care to more sick patients, and offering compassion to families struggling with distance from loved ones.
“We have staff that have been redeployed to come help us, which we’re grateful for. This is not the ideal situation, but if we weren’t doing this, there are people that would die, hospitals that would collapse, and communities that would be devastated.”
Watch the video above featuring a number of staff working in the ICU and critical care areas.
For Rachel Janusc, a Registered Nurse in the ICU, the experience has felt unreal.
“We didn’t realize the magnitude in how fast it would escalate,” she said.
To meet the demand, the ICU has expanded in size and complexity, but it’s not about simply adding beds. There are significant physical and human resource pressures.
“A bed isn’t just a bed – it’s having the trained staff that are needed to care for people in these beds,” said Allison Baetz, a Respiratory Therapist in the ICU. “The community needs to know that this is real.”
Jenny Lo adds this ask of the community: “Please do your part. We will risk it for you, but you’ve got to do your part too.”