Overcapacity at Red Deer Regional Hospital reaches “extreme” level

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“Level 3 is a relatively rare event for us. Going into overcapacity, of course, is not unusual for our hospital or any of the bigger hospitals in the province. Yesterday was a little more extreme than is typical, that’s why we went to OCP Level 3.”

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Overcapacity Protocol is designed to ensure the flow of patients and delivery of services continues when hospital resources are strained. The AHS OCP system has four levels in all.

Sinclair says it’s important to note that at no time on Tuesday were patients being turned away from the hospital.

“Sometimes people think that OCP means we can’t send patients here (to Red Deer Regional) or that higher level specialty care patients can’t come here. At no time was that a problem yesterday,” he says. “That’s the whole purpose for OCP is to ensure we’re generating that flow so that we can safely ensure that all specialty services and consults that we do here in Red Deer are able to be provided.”

Sinclair admits initiating Level 3 OCP is a big concern, adding other facilities in the Central Zone provided much needed help on Tuesday.

“We had a terrific response from our rural partners yesterday in helping the zone flow out, because this is truly a zone flow issue. Red Deer Regional is the only site with a full spectrum of specialty services, especially diagnostics, things that you can’t get in almost all the other sites. So when we have all those patients coming into Red Deer from rural sites, we need to make sure we can fulfill that specialty function. And yesterday our rural partners were terrific in helping us out.”