fernando said that profile captures many of those in icus in ontario right now with severe covid-19.
”the reason this has gotten so much attention is that for a lot of us it is a picture of the patient we are seeing through this third wave of covid-19.”
fernando has been working in recent weeks at the icu at lakeridge health on the east side of toronto, which has among the hardest-hit icus in the province. he said he has never seen anything like the impact of covid-19 there.
not only are icu admissions at all time highs, but the patients on ventilators are younger than in previous waves.
“these tend to be patients from relatively lower socio-economic status who are essential workers who aren’t afforded sick time off,” he said.
“when you now look at the profile of the patient in the icu, these findings, i think, have really important implications for the patients that we are caring for, even today.”
the team from the ottawa hospital, the institut du savoir montfort, ices and the university of ottawa, looked at health records from all 423,000 icu survivors in ontario between 2009 and 2017 and matched them with non-icu hospitalized patients who had similar risk factors.
among icu survivors, the highest rates of later suicide and self-harm were in patients between 18 and 34, those with pre-existing diagnoses of depression, anxiety or ptsd, and those who received invasive procedures such as mechanical ventilation or mechanical blood filtration due to kidney failure.