A West Kootenay doctor says the regional hospital in Trail is at risk of not having enough space to accommodate COVID-19 patients in intensive care units.

Dr. Mike Vance works at Trail鈥檚 Kootenay Boundary Regional Hospital (KBRH), which has six ICU beds. Vance told the Nelson Star on Monday that four of those beds were currently being used by COVID-19 patients.

The danger, according to Vance, is that potential patients from the recent surge in regional cases have not yet started arriving at the hospital. Typically, COVID-19 patients who require oxygen only present themselves 10 to 14 days after they are first infected.

That means that those infected with COVID from the week of Aug. 1 to 7, which saw 74 new cases in Nelson, 30 in Castlegar, 11 in the Arrow Lakes area that includes Nakusp, 10 in Trail and four in Grand Forks, are only just beginning to feel symptoms that may lead to hospitalization.

鈥淭he next month right now is going to be a disaster,鈥� said Vance. 鈥淚f you can鈥檛 bend that curve back down, this is going to continue with some major growth.鈥�

KBRH is the only hospital with an ICU and respiratory therapy in the Kootenay Boundary. Vance, who is working with admitted COVID-19 patients at the hospital who don鈥檛 require life support or ventilation, said the hospital is having to rearrange its ward to add more beds.

He is also concerned for people who don鈥檛 have COVID-19 but require a stay in the ICU for other medical reasons.

A person recovering from a heart attack, he said, may only need to be in the ICU for a few days. But COVID-19 patients are requiring longer stays on ventilators.

鈥淭hey鈥檙e in there for weeks, especially now that we鈥檙e seeing these younger people. They鈥檙e going to rally and they鈥檙e going to fight for longer. There鈥檚 little chance for more patients in any capacity.鈥�

Vance said there鈥檚 a possibility COVID-19 patients will be sent to a hospital outside the region, but warned hospitals in the Okanagan are already at capacity.

Last week to support high numbers of COVID-19 patients, the majority, Interior Health said, were young adults who aren鈥檛 fully vaccinated.

Interior Health meanwhile continues to lead the province in , the majority of which are in the Central Okanagan area which includes 琉璃神社.

This leaves few options for patients if the ICU at KBRH is full.

鈥淲hat I really want people to know is that we have six ICU beds, and we can鈥檛 handle this many cases,鈥� said Vance.

鈥淚f people can鈥檛 get vaccinated and start wearing masks and start socially distancing, locally it鈥檚 just going to be way too much for us. It鈥檚 going to overwhelm our hospital system pretty quick.鈥�

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| tyler.harper@nelsonstar.com
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