The Ottawa Hospital (TOH) has gained praise recently for its General Internal Medicine unit, which is led entirely by women. “Our chief of staff is a woman, our senior medical officer is a woman, all of this sort of fairly recently and I think that sort of highlights the change that is slowly coming about within medicine,” said Dr. Isabelle Desjardins, General Internal Medicine Site Chief for the hospital. It should be noted that this is still a relatively rare situation in medicine in Canada.
As the Omicron-driven surge in COVID-19 infections is worsening the shortage of nurses at Canadian hospitals, thousands of internationally trained nurses say they can ease the strain on the health-care system if they are given the chance to work. "We can help... We just hope that they could consider us," they said.
Ontario Long Term Care Association's CEO, Donna Duncan, said that an estimated 20 to 30 per cent of staff are off work right now due to the pandemic. “We are seeing more waves of staff leaving and staff coming back, so it’s not a big hit all at once, it is more of a rolling impact we are finding more manageable at this time.” Duncan also noted that changes like vaccines have made things more manageable for staff.
Advocates for the nursing sector are sounding the alarm of an impending “public health crisis” as surging rates of Omicron across the country stretch already limited staff to breaking point. The warning comes as Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced several new COVID-19 public health measures to contain the spread of the variant.
Tens of thousands of Canadians across the country are being hit with the flu, a cold or COVID-19, and with many symptoms overlapping, coupled with a lack of availability of COVID tests, it’s almost impossible to tell what they could be ailing from, doctors say. The advice for anyone who is feeling ill is to assume they’ve been infected with COVID-19, even if they cannot be tested for the virus.
Canadians are struggling to get tested for COVID-19. An epidemiologist and associate professor at the University of Ottawa explains that tests are might be reserved for healthcare workers or people who need them for clinical diagnostic purposes. “If you’ve got symptoms, we ask you to stay home and isolate until they abate,” he said. Another expert said that “you may need to reach out and go for a visit to an urgent care clinic, perhaps, or an emergency department if that gets very severe.”
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