Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital opens as a system solution to fight COVID-19

CVH will become Ontario's first COVID-19 pandemic hospital, writes Altaf Stationwala

Yorkregion.com
Jan. 27, 2021

As COVID-19 cases in Ontario continue to rise at an alarming rate, hospitals are being stretched to our limits, in particular when it comes to the volume of critical and acute care patients we’re treating.

Hospitals in York Region and the Greater Toronto Area are especially feeling these capacity pressures.

In recent weeks at Mackenzie Health, we have transferred more than 60 patients from Mackenzie Richmond Hill Hospital to neighbouring hospitals through the provincial Incident Management System (IMS).

The IMS was introduced by the province in November, to help Ontario hospitals with capacity pressures by supporting the movement of patients to hospitals with the available resources. Now it’s time to give back to the system that has supported us.

Understanding the capacity pressures across Ontario, Mackenzie Health worked with the provincial government to provide a unique system solution. When Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital opens next month, it will open with an exclusive focus on creating capacity for the most pressing needs of the healthcare system: critical and acute care beds.

The Emergency Department will NOT be open at Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital until the surge has been adequately addressed. Our focus is on creating additional space to care for critical care and acute care patients to provide relief to our overstretched health care system.

Operations at Mackenzie Richmond Hill Hospital will continue as they are until the system has stabilized and we are able to fully realize our two-hospital future. This means that programs like our Woman and Child, Inpatient Mental Health and Inpatient Integrated Stroke programs will not be moving to Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital at this time.

Opening Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital was always intended to be a tangible solution to ending hallway medicine. Now we’re even more proud to play a role in supporting the larger health care system as we face unprecedented challenges caused by the pandemic.

We know this will be a different type of opening than we anticipated, and a significant change to what we committed to our staff, physicians and our community.

But it’s the right thing to do -- to act as a system solution right now to support our community and our province in the fight against COVID-19.