Unvaccinated COVID-19 patients straining B.C. hospitals, particularly in Interior

VERNON (CityNews) — A woman in B.C.’s Interior was shocked and scared when she visited the emergency room this week, saying the number of unvaccinated COVID-19 patients was obviously overwhelming healthcare workers.

The province is now releasing data on how many cases and hospitalizations are among people who have not been fully vaccinated. On Thursday, health officials said people not fully vaccinated accounted for 82.4% of cases and 86.4% of hospitalizations between Aug. 11 and 24. Those numbers are not broken down by region.

From Aug. 11-24, people not fully vaccinated accounted for 82.4% of cases and 86.4% of hospitalizations.

Past week, cases per 100,000 population (Aug. 18-24)
•Not vaccinated: 199.5
•Fully vaccinated: 24.6

— Adrian Dix (@adriandix) August 26, 2021

Wendy Lutz went to Vernon Jubilee Hospital on Tuesday. She was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation five years ago, which is an irregular heartbeat that can lead to blood clots, stroke, and even heart failure. What she saw during her hours-long wait for treatment opened her eyes to how much strain the fourth wave of COVID-19 is putting on the healthcare system.

“When I got there I was shocked at the situation in the ER, they were completely overrun,” she says.

“They were going to try and get me a room … but they had no beds, full of COVID patients, people in the hallways on stretchers. I sat there for almost three hours, at a really rapid heart rate feeling unwell. In the meantime, a steady stream of young people and even a toddler coming in with COVID and seriously ill, unable to get air, unable to speak.”

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Lutz says it was clear to her which people were there due to COVID-19 because of the screening and safety measures in place at triage.

“That was the one question that you could hear through the room, ‘Have you had a vaccination?'” she tells CityNews, adding the answer she heard over and over again was “No.”

Treated with half the staff:
3 hours after she arrived at the hospital Wendy Lutz was admitted to get treated for her Atrial fibrillation. She says there were half the staff in the room than in previous times because “that’s all they had”. @CityNewsVAN @NEWS1130 #COVIDbc pic.twitter.com/7Avbz98b3c

— Ashley Burr (@AshleyBurr_) August 26, 2021

At several points, she questioned whether she should just take her chances and leave.

“I didn’t feel safe,” she says.

“It’s a little unnerving, it’s a little frightening. I was going to leave and they explained to me what kind of risks that put me at of having stroke. I wondered how many other people went in and left?”

‘People who are anti-vaccine should have to go and see what’s going on’

Describing the healthcare workers she talked to as “at their wit’s end,” Lutz says the toll this is taking on frontline workers was clear to her.

“I felt nothing but empathy for them, working in that kind of environment day after day with no end in sight,” she says.

“We’re going to lose our health care professionals there, the burnout factor is staggering. We can’t expect people to keep doing the job that is so difficult and puts them at such high risk, and their families at risk.”

While Lutz worried about potential exposure to the virus, she also got angry at people who are able to get a vaccine but haven’t.

“People who are anti-vaccine should have to go and see what’s going on, and how sick these people are — because they’re really ill,” she says.

“People who are sitting on the fence about a vaccine. If you don’t want to do it for yourself do it for people that are trying to help the rest of us. And hope you don’t get into an accident and end up in the ER because it’s pretty tight in there right now.”

As of Aug. 24, 68 per cent of eligible people in Vernon were fully vaccinated. Weekly case counts have been climbing, with 133 recorded between Aug 15 and 21, up from 109 the week before, and 91 the week before that.

Province-wide, there has been a surge in demand for the shot in the wake of an announcement that proof of vaccination will be required to access venues like bars, restaurants, and sporting events.

‘Right now, healthcare is under pressure’

Doctors of B.C. President Matthew Chow says the situation in hospitals is being driven by high rates of infection among those who are not vaccinated, and the prevalence of the Delta variant.

“We’re seeing a wave of illness in the unvaccinated population driven by a highly transmissible variant of COVID-19. It seems that Delta is just so very efficient at finding unvaccinated people and infecting them and then spreading to other unvaccinated people. The other alarming thing about Delta in particular, is that it seems to send more people that are unvaccinated to the hospital,” he says.

“I don’t like to be a very alarmist person. In fact, I’m not an alarmist person. I just like to be very frank with people. Right now, healthcare is under pressure. It goes to show that our choices that we make to be vaccinated are not vaccinated, it makes a difference here. It’s having a real and immediate impact, particularly in the Interior.”

“This is why our choices to be vaccinated or not vaccinated actually have much larger implications than our own individual health.” @CityNewsVAN @NEWS1130 pic.twitter.com/e4IWCBiGcu

— Ashley Burr (@AshleyBurr_) August 26, 2021

Staffing shortages and the displacement of people due to wildfires is only adding to the strain on the system in the hard-hit region of the province, according to Chow.

The cumulative impact is weighing heavily on an already stressed workforce, as well as people trying to access healthcare. Chow notes some elective surgeries are being cancelled, and more people are finding themselves in situations like Lutz.’

“Our choices to be vaccinated or not vaccinated actually have much larger implications than our own individual health.”