Costs for a COVID-19 patient treated in intensive care can climb to an estimated $50,000-Report

A new report says costs for a COVID-19 patient treated in intensive care can climb to an estimated $50,000 compared with about $8,400 dollars for someone who's had a heart attack.

The Canadian Institute for Health Information report says the cost for a pneumonia patient being in ICU is about eight-thousand dollars.

But it says COVID patients remain there for much longer and, on average, their treatment amounts to about $23,000.

The report covers data from between January 2020 and March 2021.

It says COVID-19 cost Canada's health-care system a billion dollars during that time, but it excludes costs for doctors and all costs for Quebec.

Health economist Walter Wodchis of the University of Toronto's school of public health says there are many other costs related to the pandemic, including the mental health toll, particularly on youth, and a rise in deaths from the opioid crisis.

He says all those costs should be considered and there needs to be a general discussion on how to allocate scarce health-care resources.