Re: P.E.I.’s QEH equipped to battle coronavirus crisis: disaster medicine specialist, March 28: Dr. Jain states confidently that “the emergency department at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital is well prepared for the coronavirus crisis as it continues to intensify.”
It is nice to hear that Dr. Jain has adopted a newly optimistic outlook on the capacity of the QEH to handle emergency situations. It was only a short time ago that I responded to an article in which he indicated that the QEH emergency department was experiencing difficulty handling their patients — this was before the pandemic.
P.E.I. presently has 19 ventilators to serve a population of 157,000 people. Apparently 53 more ventilators are on the way. If the number of cases of COVID-19 were to increase exponentially, in ways similar to other areas of the world, the hospital’s capacity to provide emergency care to chronically ill patients would be seriously taxed.
Considering people were casually fraternizing on Victoria Park Boardwalk in Charlottetown only a few days ago, one would think that bumptiousness on the part of our medical professionals might be a tad presumptuous.
Colm Magner,
Victoria
