For nearly two years now, as an emergency physician, I have witnessed first-hand the multiple interruptions in care, the physical and mental exhaustion of my peers, and the widespread distress caused by COVID-19 and its variation within the population.
Posted yesterday at 11:00 a.m.
The more the pandemic progresses, the more I am able to draw parallels with what I experienced as a humanitarian doctor during the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. This comparison may seem excessive to some, but in my opinion, the situation in Quebec and elsewhere in the country requires a response as strong and orderly as during a natural disaster.
Regain control of the situation
We have to admit that Omicron made us lose our means. You could list the mistakes that were made that could have been avoided, but I’ve learned that in an emergency it’s best to focus on what you control and what you can do.
I have been able to learn important lessons since my first humanitarian intervention. First, any emergency situation is divided into four phases: preparation, response, recovery and mitigation.
We failed the first, as we were unable to adequately anticipate the threat. We are now in the middle of the response phase, which also has its difficulties, but for which we have possible solutions, which I will list shortly. Finally, recovery and mitigation will be crucial steps on which we can act. One day we will have to restore the system after this virological tsunami, and we can start today by thinking about the restoration of front-line care (the access point to the network), priority clienteles and, in the longer term term, by anticipating and preparing for the next crisis.
To adequately respond to the current crisis, according to the 5S principle, we must simultaneously bring together (synchronicity) the following critical elements: labor (staff), equipment (stuff), space (space) and the system (systems). As soon as one of them is deficient, the emergency response is inadequate and jeopardizes the results. Until now, these elements have never been met, which partly explains the cataclysm that we know.
Use the means at our disposal
Given the difficulties we have in simultaneously bringing together the four critical elements necessary for an optimal emergency response, it is important to considerably reduce the entry of new patients into the network in order to limit the damage. This is largely based on the adherence of the entire population to health measures, but above all to vaccination. The vaccine is the most effective tool at our disposal to mitigate the effects of the crisis.
Every day I see hospital admissions of seriously ill COVID-19 patients. They are mostly unvaccinated.
Currently, in Quebec, unvaccinated patients are overrepresented in hospital compared to their actual weight in the general population: they are 7.5 times more likely to be hospitalized than those who have received two doses of vaccine. It’s enormous !
I am sorry to see patients who would otherwise be healthy make such a choice. We are privileged to live in a G7 country and to have access to vaccines. It seems logical to me to opt for vaccination, both for ourselves and for our elders, our children and our caregivers.