The St. Thomas Elgin General Hospital is giving us an inside look at how the pandemic impacted daily operation with its latest annual report.
The 2020/2021 report shows us an obvious decline in patient visits to STEGH throughout the first year of the pandemic.
The Emergency Department saw 42,415 patient visits, compared to the year before, which saw 56,480 visits. Day Surgery Cases were also down from 7,211 in 2019/20 to 5,981.
Other interesting takeaways from the report is the hospital’s COVID-19 response. The opening of STEGH’s COVID-19 assessment centre on April 15, 2020 saw the first of the over 40,000 COVID swabs taken as of March 2021.
The number of staff at the hospital grew with 320 new hires, triple their usual hiring rate. More staff and more daily tasks at the hospital also meant an increase in personal protective equipment being used.
STEGH went through a combined 33,607 boxes of gloves, 252,683 isolation gowns, 5,913 bottles of hand sanitizer and over 300,000 masks while caring for over 60 COVID-19 patients from March 2020 to March 2021.
Despite the uncertain times, one thing remained unchanged noted the hospital – the ongoing expressions of support they have received from the residents of St.Thomas and Elgin County, including thoughtful donations, parades of vehicles, words of encouragement, and acts of kindness.
