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SAIT respiratory program lends ventilators, fast-tracks students for COVID-19 response

SAIT has lent Alberta 13 ventilators as the province stockpiles the life-saving machines ahead of the expected peak of the COVID-19 outbreak

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The Southern Alberta Institute of Technology has lent Alberta 13 ventilators as the province stockpiles the potentially life-saving machines ahead of the expected peak of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Meena Kumar, academic chair of SAIT’s life sciences portfolio, said the polytechnic has met regularly with Alberta Health Services to discuss the novel coronavirus pandemic. When AHS asked if it could borrow some of the machines, Kumar said the decision was easy to make.

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“Since our classes now have moved off-campus and are online at this time, it didn’t make sense to keep the ventilators being unused in an empty location,” Kumar said. “We were glad to help in any way that we could.”

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Alberta is stocking up on ventilators in an effort to avoid devastating consequences seen in countries like Italy and Spain, where health-care systems were overloaded by COVID-19 and doctors were forced to make decisions on who would get access to the devices.

Premier Jason Kenney unveiled Wednesday plans to more than double the province’s supply of available ventilators, raising the number of machines designated for COVID-19 patients to 761 from 314 by the end of April.

The additional units will come from a variety of sources, including repurposing devices capable of mechanical ventilation meant for anesthetic and pediatric use and requisitioning ventilators from facilities like SAIT that are typically used for training.

At the expected peak of Alberta’s COVID-19 outbreak around mid-May, 232 people are expected to need ventilator treatment, with 392 needing treatment under an elevated scenario, according to AHS modelling.

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“Right now, we have significant excess capacity, and we’re actually expecting that to grow,” Kenney said. “In the worst-case scenario we’re planning for, we’d have well over 300 ventilators in excess capacity.”

SAIT’s respiratory therapy program gave the 13 ventilators to the province on Monday, after cleaning the devices and checking that they work. The AHS conducted additional checks before putting any of the ventilators into use. Eleven of the ventilators are expected to stay in the city, Kumar said, while two will be shipped to Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre.

Typically, students in the program use the ventilators with training manikins for hands-on instruction.

Kumar says SAIT has older ventilators waiting in the wings, if necessary. However, the machines will likely require front-line health staff to undergo additional training,

The respiratory therapy program is pitching in on the province’s COVID-19 response effort in another way too, Kumar says.

SAIT is fast-tracking the graduation of students who were scheduled to finish the program at the end of April, she said, with students currently completing their clinical practicums applying for provisional licensing to join the workforce as soon as possible.

The majority of the current cohort of students will likely be working before May, with many stepping into the COVID-19 response, Kumar said.

“A lot of our graduates, as well as our students, have really stepped up to the plate.”

Alberta also revealed plans to expand its workforce as the coronavirus peak nears. In addition to recruiting recent graduates, AHS said it intends to rehire recent retirees and redeploy other qualified medical staff to COVID-19 units.

jherring@postmedia.com

Twitter: @jasonfherring

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