Overcapacity reaches Level 3 at Red Deer Regional Hospital
High levels of patient volumes at Red Deer Regional Hospital this week led Alberta Health Services (AHS) to implement a Level 3 Overcapacity Protocol (OCP).
AHS officials say overcapacity protocol is designed to ensure the flow of patients and delivery of services continues when hospital resources are strained, adding the OCP system has four levels in all.
Allan Sinclair, AHS Senior Operating Officer for Red Deer and surrounding area says pressures at the facility have been especially challenging this week, with the Level 3 OCP instated late in the day on Monday and still in effect Wednesday afternoon.
“It’s been a fairly long space of time where we’ve had real capacity and demand pressures,” says Sinclair. “That’s not uncommon in the winter. Sometimes we get outbreaks or other things that happen to us and this time there was no one theme, there were some injuries and some cardiacs and some respiratory but there wasn’t anything like an outbreak that was happening, just a volume of service that was happening for a few days in-a-row and much higher than typical.”