Niagara Health president says critical care capacity is in a “state of crisis”

Niagara Health says critical care capacity is in a state of crisis.

That’s according to Niagara Health President and interim CEO Lynn Guerriero, who posted a tweet Tuesday afternoon about the situation, saying they’ve had to open additional critical care beds in other areas of the hospital.

Critical care capacity @niagarahealth is in a state of crisis. We’ve opened additional critical care beds in other areas of the hospital but we have limited critical care-trained staff to further increase capacity. Stay home. Save Lives. Please Retweet pic.twitter.com/3FG5M1w90I

— Lynn Guerriero (@LynnGuerriero) April 20, 2021

She says Niagara Health’s overall ICU capacity is at 104 per cent. Capacity for Level 3 ICU care, which is the highest level of ICU care, is at 164 per cent.

Mustafa Hirji, acting medical officer of health for the region, says the vast majority of these hospitalizations and ICU admissions are local residents.

#Niagara‘s high case count is starting to yield more hospitalizations & ICU admissions. The vast majority of these are local residents; not transfers from the GTA.

Let’s all stay home & spend time only with our households—that will break the chains of transmission. https://t.co/ht0k14r3cj

— Mustafa Hirji (@mustafahirji) April 20, 2021

On Tuesday, the region reported 144 cases for a total of 12,284. There are 1,849 active cases in the region.

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