There are no active cases of COVID-19 at the Thunder Bay Regional hospital.
Dr. Stewart Kennedy tells us now that the one person who was hospitalized is cleared, the number of beds in the COVID ward is down to 13, from the 35 original.
“Certainly we’ll keep it active until we have at least a two or three week period of no COVID cases here in Thunder Bay,” says the hospital’s executive VP.
He adds five people are waiting for test results at the hospital, while two people are self-isolating at home. All 13 beds are empty.
“So at this point in time we’re in good shape. We’ll have meetings with our incident management team, and decide when we’ll begin elective surgeries. We may need the extra capacity at that time,” says Kennedy.
The hospital official adds while primary surgeries for cancer or heart are underway, decision on electives such as hip replacement are expected soon.
“Because we meet all the guidelines so far, with enough PPE supply, and enough capacity in the hospital. So we’re hoping we can actually begin to introduce elective surgeries sometime next week, but that decision will be made over the next day or two,” says Kennedy.
Furthermore, he points out we must keep current health practices going, and says the recent decision by the federal government to keep the border with the USA closed to late June is great news. In fact, Dr. Kennedy says if he had his way, it would stay closed another year, due to what he calls the poor habits of those south of the border.
