MONTREAL As COVID-19 stretches Montreal hospitals further and further, half the cardiac surgeries at the McGill University Health Centre have already been cancelled. Montrealers should expect more updates like this, said Dr. Peter Goldberg, the director of critical care at the MUHC, and it’s not good news. “We’re talking about important cardiac surgeries that are planned, that are scheduled,” he said Thursday. “They’re scheduled for a reason, because they are surgically indicated. They all, for lack of a better term, [have] a best-before date.” Those surgeries had to be cancelled because cardiac patients must stay in an intensive care unit after surgery, but that’s not possible right now – all but five of the MUHC’s 61 ICU beds are in use, nearly half of them with COVID-19 patients.
With snow on the horizon, the team at the Montreal Children s Hospital is concerned people will flock to the hills, resulting head injuries, broken bones and more.
The situation at Montreal's hospitals remains under control but is "extremely tense" as they contend with an onslaught of COVID-19 patients stemming from increased infections over the holiday period, said Sonia Bélanger, a senior public health official.