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Provinces have many hospitals beds currently occupied by patients who are ready to leave but cannot, possibly due to having nowhere to go because of symptoms of advanced disorders or absence of able caregiver in the home. A chronic problem across all provinces, Health Quality Ontario reports that over 15 per cent of Ontario’s hospital’s beds are filled with patients “ready to go home.”

The best option to make space for people with severe symptomology of COVID-19 is to move out patients whom may not need the intensity of care provided in hospitals.

Given what we can safely anticipate will be a huge stress on the capacity of our health workers and hospitals, it is preferable that patients are discharged to home. For others not yet ready to return home, long-term care beds will need to be rapidly found. This presents challenges for most provinces, with wait lists for long-term care beds a common occurrence.

For others, hospital beds will need to be found among other hospitals. Co-ordination between hospitals at this speed will be a barrier, as the scale of moving hundreds of patients between hospitals, and away from the epicentre, will be fast. These complex and expensive moves alone may not open a sufficient number of beds. Then, provinces will need to move patients to hospitals in other provinces, a level of co-ordination that provinces have never experienced.

The best option is to move out patients whom may not need the intensity of care provided in hospitals

Provinces’ silo-based health-care delivery systems would need to behave in ways they haven’t before in order to avoid premature death and suffering among people affected by a COVID-19 outbreak. Last week, the federal minister of health, Patty Hajdu, reassured Canadians she has a plan. But her government, more than any other, knows that a plan is worth nothing if there is no one to guide or to direct, and the resources to execute.