As critical care units fill with COVID-19 patients, doctors, nurses and staff from other hospital departments will be called upon to help treat them, says a healthcare leader who is helping to organize the provincial pandemic response.

“It’s a war and we have to take wartime measures,” said Dr. Kevin Smith, who is co-chairing the province’s critical care COVID-19 table.

“Wartime measures mean doing the best we can for everyone involved. If that means using some people when normally we wouldn’t, but we feel it is safe and effective for this period of time, then we will, but with an abundance of caution,” he said, noting they would be working alongside experienced critical care health professionals.

Health regulatory bodies such as the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario are relaxing rules to allow healthcare workers to work outside their “scopes of practice,” or areas of specialty, during the pandemic.

“While physicians are typically required to only practice within their scope of practice, the CPSO’s public health emergencies policy enables physicians to depart from this expectation during times like this,” a statement on the regulator’s website says.

The regulator is also allowing some residents to get fast-tracked medical licences.

Smith, who is also president of the University Health Network, said he would like to see students close to graduating in other health professions be given special permission to do frontline work.

“Most of the schools have said we will give you extended licences or limited licences (to some students) in order to do that, which is exactly what we should do.”

Talks are underway to allow volunteers to help out during the crisis too, he said.

It’s possible that a one- or two-week course could be created to teach personal support worker skills, he said.

“We are not going to ask people to do things that we don’t think they are safe or competent to do,” he said.

“But there is a component of having a lot of lonely people feeling isolated during this time,” he said, referring to seniors in long-term care homes.

“If a nurse can’t round as frequently, but there are people who can have eyes on residents, and alert a nurse if someone isn’t doing well, then I don’t think it’s a bad thing at all,” he said.

Volunteers could also help in hospitals and home care settings, Smith said.

In home care, volunteers would not help with intimate care such as bathing or toileting, but they could prep food, housekeep or help people get to bed, Smith said.

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“There is a ton of discussion happening,” he said. “Obviously we would do this with families involved.”

Smith said he expects the province will decide this week on whether it is safe and effective to use one ventilator on two patients: “That would make a big difference if that is possible.”

The University Health Network has begun to publish on its website how many COVID-19 patents have been admitted. Currently there are eight in intensive care and nine in an inpatient unit.

“We are willing to do that as long as we can ensure maximum protection of privacy. We are erring on the side of transparency,” he said, referring to making such data publicly available.

There are increasing calls from health professionals, academics and media for more transparency of data on the number of COVID-19 patients in the province, including the number of those in critical care.