Taking action to meet the demands of a sustained surge at CHEO

Ottawa, Canada (November 2, 2022) — Like most pediatric hospitals across the country, CHEO is experiencing an unprecedented major surge. There is a significant increase in the number of young patients with acute viral respiratory infections including RSV, COVID and the seasonal flu. This means that the hospital is well beyond its capacity and wait times are, unfortunately, historically long.

To address this emergency situation, staff and leadership at CHEO are undertaking a series of measures to ensure that young people in our community get the emergency, critical and acute care they need.

Among these focused actions:

• We are redeploying clinicians with critical care skills who may be working in other parts of CHEO to help in our ICU.  
• With a focus on our patient-facing needs, we are reassigning staff to support emergency, acute and critical care needs.
• We are quickly hiring more staff and getting them on the floors. 
• We are scheduling staff from across the organization who have put up their hand to support care teams in non-clinical ways. 
• We are expanding staffing and clinic hours at the Kids Come First and East Ottawa Kids clinics.
• We are embedding specialized discharge planners within our clinical teams to ensure young patients get home sooner, safely. 
• We are postponing some non urgent surgeries and procedures to free up staff with the skills needed to care for the very sick children and youth needing acute care at CHEO.
• We are postponing some clinic appointments to free up staff with the skills needed to care for the very sick children and youth needing acute care at CHEO.
• We are starting our enhanced peak viral season measures on Nov. 3 for the safety of families and staff, which includes having only one parent/caregiver at the bedside.  

We know that lengthy waits delays and postponed surgeries are distressing for our young patients and families.  It’s a gut-punch to have to take these actions, but we believe that together we will get through this. Rest assured, any kids requiring urgent care will always been seen immediately.

We want to thank staff and physicians for their hard work, families for their patience, CHEO Foundation donors for helping fund new positions, staff from across the organization for pitching in and the Ministry of Health and Ontario Health for approving additional staffing and bed capacity, which will make a difference. 

Important note: Families who are affected by today’s changes will be contacted by CHEO. If you have concerns about care received at CHEO, you can contact our Patient Experience team (experience@cheo.on.ca).

Media briefing: November 3, 2022

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