MGH rethinks flow of Emergency Department to also care for COVID-19 patients

You are now looking at some of the courageous men and women working in the Emergency Department (ED) of the Montreal General Hospital (MGH). The MGH ED is a level 1 trauma centre, where victims of severe physical injury receive life-saving and urgent care.

“In addition to caring for patients who come in with trauma, we will be caring for patients who are COVID-19 positive or suspected positive,” says Carole Filteau, nurse manager of the MGH ED. “We had to rethink the flow of the department to ensure the safety of all patients and staff.”

For example, the psychiatric emergency unit, which was adjacent to the ED, has been restructured to increase the number of isolation rooms available to COVID-19 patients. The team also put in place a buddy system for ‘donning’ and ‘doffing’, the process of putting on and taking off life-saving personal protective equipment, to ensure the proper steps are followed to avoid the spread of infection.

They now have to stock the resuscitation room with the precise amount of equipment and supplies needed to treat one patient at a time, to avoid any contamination. And any equipment that is not disposable has been covered entirely in plastic. If a patient who is COVID-19 positive, or suspected of being COVID-19 positive, is to be intubated, this plastic will be changed anew.

Help the Emergency Department do its job of saving lives by staying home and practicing social distancing.