Overburdened Ontario children's hospitals sending kids to Kingston for treatment

Kingston General Hospital is taking in young, very sick patients from across Ontario as children’s hospitals are overloaded.

Jason Hann, the executive vice president of patient care with Kingston Health Sciences Centre, says three patients came in on Monday night alone.

“Certainly something that we haven’t seen before,” he explains. “This is different for us, we do see surges and demands for care for pediatric respiratory illnesses, but not to this level and this early in the fall have we seen this before.”

Hann says most of the patients are under the age of two. Many cases are influenza while some are RSV patients. They are coming from all over Ontario, including from CHEO, the Toronto-area, and even northern Ontario.

“It’s really a result of the demand,” explains Hann. “We’ve seen a significant increase in RSV and flu-type illnesses in the pediatric population much sooner than we would have seen in previous years.”

The hospital has expanded the number of beds it has for children, but Hann says its pediatric critical care ward is already sitting at 200 per cent capacity, while the pediatric ward is at 150 per cent.

This is not the first time Kingston has been the site of patient transfers. It took in COVID-19 patients from other hospitals at the height of the pandemic.

The nearby Brockville General Hospital has also expanded to help CHEO. This is the first time the intensive care unit is prepared to admit kids starting at the age of 14, explains Julie Caffin, the senior Vice President, chief nursing executive.

“Normally we would transfer anybody out that requires the level of ICU care. In today’s situation, we have been asked to consider to admit those who are 14-plus,” she explains.

Caffin says that the general hospital is able to see young patients, but if ICU care were needed, in the past, they would be transferred to another hospital.

She says it’s not clear how long the surge will last, as they’ve been given no official word, but she says the peak could come in January. So far, they haven’t had a patient that young be admitted.

In Kingston, Hann says the hospital is able to keep up with local needs as well.

“We’re working well as a team to make sure that we can provide that care,” he says. “We ask the public to be patient with us as we’re managing the demands for care, but if you need the care and you’re acutely ill you’ll get the care that you need.”