The Ottawa Hospital says it's preparing to implement the second stage of its plan to deal with the growing surge of COVID-19 patients. "The current COVID-19 situation has created rapidly increasing pressure on the health-care system," the hospital wrote in a news release Thursday afternoon. As of Thursday, there were 84 COVID-19 patients at the city's hospitals, 25 of them in intensive care. The Ottawa Hospital, which has three campuses across the city, said Level 2 involves increasing bed capacity and redeploying staff from other units as non-emergency procedures and services are reduced. The hospital said while it has the capacity to care for as many as 220 COVID-19 patients, it hopes to never reach that point.

Source: CBC News April 15, 2021 20:25 UTC