a322x1n
2021-08-20 17:30:55 UTC
<https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/outrageous-numbers-louisiana-ho
spitals-struggle-with-flood-of-covid-patients/ar-AANxm8v?ocid=msedgdhp&pc
=U531>
<https://tinyurl.com/3mhfeax3>
'Outrageous numbers': Louisiana hospitals struggle with flood of COVID
patients.
In Louisiana, the COVID-19 crisis is leaving hospitals teetering on the
edge of collapse.
The state currently has the nation's highest case rate, and
hospitalization levels -- more than 3,000 at last count -- are
stretching the health system to a breaking point with patients
overwhelming intensive care units and staffing in short supply.
Our volume, over the past couple of weeks, has been outrageously high,
Dr. Jon Michael Cuba, service line chairman for emergency medicine at
Ochsner Health in Baton Rouge, told ABC News. There has been a ton, a
ton of COVID. We are built to deal with this, but with this surge, there
is a lack of nurses, a lack of beds and its hard to get enough
physicians to see the onslaught of patients that are coming in.
In the last month alone, hospital admissions have surged by more than
340%, amidst a steady rise in daily cases over the last seven weeks.
The situation in Louisiana, driven by the highly infectious delta
variant, is mirrored in other Southern states where vaccination rates
are relatively low.
In Florida, more patients are currently hospitalized than at any other
point in the pandemic, and in Alabama, there no remaining ICU beds
available statewide.
In Louisiana, less than 39% of the state's population is fully
vaccinated. Nearly all of those currently hospitalized with COVID-19 in
the state -- 91% -- are unvaccinated, according to state data.
"We're seeing people come in, they're getting sicker more quickly," Dr.
Ryan Richard, a pulmonary and critical care physician with the Baton
Rouge General Hospital told ABC News, adding that "the vast majority of
people are unvaccinated."
Hospitals in crisis mode
Hospitals across the state are struggling to keep up with the rapidly
changing pandemic. There is simply not enough staff to deal with the
influx of COVID-19 patients, in addition to the non-COVID-19 patients,
doctors said, thus greatly straining the healthcare system
We are seeing crazy outrageous numbers of patients, Cuba explained.
At the beginning of July, there were 10 COVID-19 patients receiving care
at Baton Rouge General Hospital. As of Wednesday, there were more than
200 COVID-19 patients.
MORE: Vast majority of ICU patients with COVID-19 are unvaccinated, ABC
News survey finds The hospital is now at a breaking point, Richard said.
We do have people calling in to try to get to this hospital that we're
unable to accept, he said, adding that they have had to send patients
to other facilities because they simply do not have the means to care
for them. That's hard on us, because we want to take everybody that we
possibly can and do everything we can, but we don't have the right
means. Its very frustrating.
With so many patients needing care, and critical care at that, hospitals
have been forced to create makeshift ICUs.
Baton Rouge General opened its eighth COVID-19 ward this week, including
one unit in the hospital's burn unit. Other hospitals in the state have
been transforming endoscopy suites, or other medical rooms into
untraditional places to care for patients.
In addition, the wait time in the emergency rooms is getting
increasingly longer, with critically ill patients forced to stand by for
care that was once immediate.
We are getting crushed in our emergency rooms, our hospitals are filled
to the brim, said Cuba. If somebody is coming in today with a heart
attack, there is a wait. Something we arent accustomed to, or
comfortable with, but its just overwhelming and a cold hard fact of the
capacity in the hospitals are starting to get to the bursting point.
Patients getting younger, and sicker.
With more than 80% of Americans 65 and older fully vaccinated, the
burden of disease has shifted largely to younger Americans. As of Aug.
7, Americans between the ages of 18-49 make up more than 40% of the
patients currently hospitalized with COVID-19, across the country.
Many of the patients who are coming in tend to be younger and sicker,
Dr. Abdul Khan, pulmonary critical care physician in the COVID ICU at
Ochsner Medical Center in New Orleans noted. He recalled a 40-year-old
father, who before being placed on a ventilator, told staff that he was
the primary caretaker of a 10 year-old son.
There has also been a staggering increase in younger patients being
hospitalized.
The other thing that we didnt see in the beginning, is parents
visiting their kids, Khan explained. The thought of having to visit my
kids in the hospital is mind numbing. And thats what we are seeing.
Even more concerning, added Khan, is the dreadful reality that we are
having to have conversations with peoples parents about end of life
care and things like that. These arent kids, but they are 20 years old
and 30 years old, and the people that are at their bedsides are their
parents.
One of the patients at Baton Rouge General is 39-year-old disaster
relief worker Jessica Cooper, of Baton Rouge, who has been hospitalized
with the virus for over 12 days. Cooper, who was unvaccinated, told ABC
News, she had wanted to wait for the shot until after she completed an
upcoming surgery.
MORE: Field hospital opens in parking garage as Mississippi sees
'skyrocketing' crush of COVID patients Cooper told ABC News that the
infection had depleted her, with every breath a battle. At her worst,
she had even written out a goodbye text to her 11-year-old daughter, in
case she did not make it out of the hospital.
"I had prayed, made my peace with God. And started typing a text message
to her, that way if something happened, and I didn't make it, she knew I
loved her," Cooper said, adding that this virus is "ageless, it's
colorless -- what you can do to protect yourself, it's not even about
you, it's to protect others."
Richard noted that people who are coming into the hospital appear to be
getting sicker, more quickly, and while in the first three waves of
COVID-19, the medical staff felt that it could predict, to some degree,
who would get sick, and which people were most vulnerable to the
disease, it is no longer the case.
We're fooled everyday for what we thought and we're seeing a lot of
young people with no medical problems that were significant or it, he
said. I thought we had kind of turned the corner and on our way out of
this thing but the delta has truly thrown us a curveball.
Hospital workers overworked and overwhelmed.
The nationwide shortage of nurses has also left frontline workers
stretching their teams responsibilities, in an effort to meet all
patients' needs.
The amount of nurses is never enough, said Khan. We are redeploying
physicians. Thats how sick the patients are, and how fast they are
coming in. If we have 5, 10, 15 extra nurses, there will be a job for
them. Thats how many people are coming to the hospital.
MORE: Biden administration to begin rolling out booster shots the week
of Sept. 20 Teams are also ultimately facing the burden of the physical
and emotional toll yet another wave has placed on the staff.
We are already stressed in our job with the extra hours covering the
surge, and then when you see your patients, and worried about whats in
the lobby, worried about who is in the ambulance, am I going to be able
to get this heart attack out to the right place, will I find a place for
the patient to land? I worry a lot about our teams, Cuba concluded.
ABC News' Trevor Ault, Chris Donato, and Erica Baumgart contributed to
this report.
spitals-struggle-with-flood-of-covid-patients/ar-AANxm8v?ocid=msedgdhp&pc
=U531>
<https://tinyurl.com/3mhfeax3>
'Outrageous numbers': Louisiana hospitals struggle with flood of COVID
patients.
In Louisiana, the COVID-19 crisis is leaving hospitals teetering on the
edge of collapse.
The state currently has the nation's highest case rate, and
hospitalization levels -- more than 3,000 at last count -- are
stretching the health system to a breaking point with patients
overwhelming intensive care units and staffing in short supply.
Our volume, over the past couple of weeks, has been outrageously high,
Dr. Jon Michael Cuba, service line chairman for emergency medicine at
Ochsner Health in Baton Rouge, told ABC News. There has been a ton, a
ton of COVID. We are built to deal with this, but with this surge, there
is a lack of nurses, a lack of beds and its hard to get enough
physicians to see the onslaught of patients that are coming in.
In the last month alone, hospital admissions have surged by more than
340%, amidst a steady rise in daily cases over the last seven weeks.
The situation in Louisiana, driven by the highly infectious delta
variant, is mirrored in other Southern states where vaccination rates
are relatively low.
In Florida, more patients are currently hospitalized than at any other
point in the pandemic, and in Alabama, there no remaining ICU beds
available statewide.
In Louisiana, less than 39% of the state's population is fully
vaccinated. Nearly all of those currently hospitalized with COVID-19 in
the state -- 91% -- are unvaccinated, according to state data.
"We're seeing people come in, they're getting sicker more quickly," Dr.
Ryan Richard, a pulmonary and critical care physician with the Baton
Rouge General Hospital told ABC News, adding that "the vast majority of
people are unvaccinated."
Hospitals in crisis mode
Hospitals across the state are struggling to keep up with the rapidly
changing pandemic. There is simply not enough staff to deal with the
influx of COVID-19 patients, in addition to the non-COVID-19 patients,
doctors said, thus greatly straining the healthcare system
We are seeing crazy outrageous numbers of patients, Cuba explained.
At the beginning of July, there were 10 COVID-19 patients receiving care
at Baton Rouge General Hospital. As of Wednesday, there were more than
200 COVID-19 patients.
MORE: Vast majority of ICU patients with COVID-19 are unvaccinated, ABC
News survey finds The hospital is now at a breaking point, Richard said.
We do have people calling in to try to get to this hospital that we're
unable to accept, he said, adding that they have had to send patients
to other facilities because they simply do not have the means to care
for them. That's hard on us, because we want to take everybody that we
possibly can and do everything we can, but we don't have the right
means. Its very frustrating.
With so many patients needing care, and critical care at that, hospitals
have been forced to create makeshift ICUs.
Baton Rouge General opened its eighth COVID-19 ward this week, including
one unit in the hospital's burn unit. Other hospitals in the state have
been transforming endoscopy suites, or other medical rooms into
untraditional places to care for patients.
In addition, the wait time in the emergency rooms is getting
increasingly longer, with critically ill patients forced to stand by for
care that was once immediate.
We are getting crushed in our emergency rooms, our hospitals are filled
to the brim, said Cuba. If somebody is coming in today with a heart
attack, there is a wait. Something we arent accustomed to, or
comfortable with, but its just overwhelming and a cold hard fact of the
capacity in the hospitals are starting to get to the bursting point.
Patients getting younger, and sicker.
With more than 80% of Americans 65 and older fully vaccinated, the
burden of disease has shifted largely to younger Americans. As of Aug.
7, Americans between the ages of 18-49 make up more than 40% of the
patients currently hospitalized with COVID-19, across the country.
Many of the patients who are coming in tend to be younger and sicker,
Dr. Abdul Khan, pulmonary critical care physician in the COVID ICU at
Ochsner Medical Center in New Orleans noted. He recalled a 40-year-old
father, who before being placed on a ventilator, told staff that he was
the primary caretaker of a 10 year-old son.
There has also been a staggering increase in younger patients being
hospitalized.
The other thing that we didnt see in the beginning, is parents
visiting their kids, Khan explained. The thought of having to visit my
kids in the hospital is mind numbing. And thats what we are seeing.
Even more concerning, added Khan, is the dreadful reality that we are
having to have conversations with peoples parents about end of life
care and things like that. These arent kids, but they are 20 years old
and 30 years old, and the people that are at their bedsides are their
parents.
One of the patients at Baton Rouge General is 39-year-old disaster
relief worker Jessica Cooper, of Baton Rouge, who has been hospitalized
with the virus for over 12 days. Cooper, who was unvaccinated, told ABC
News, she had wanted to wait for the shot until after she completed an
upcoming surgery.
MORE: Field hospital opens in parking garage as Mississippi sees
'skyrocketing' crush of COVID patients Cooper told ABC News that the
infection had depleted her, with every breath a battle. At her worst,
she had even written out a goodbye text to her 11-year-old daughter, in
case she did not make it out of the hospital.
"I had prayed, made my peace with God. And started typing a text message
to her, that way if something happened, and I didn't make it, she knew I
loved her," Cooper said, adding that this virus is "ageless, it's
colorless -- what you can do to protect yourself, it's not even about
you, it's to protect others."
Richard noted that people who are coming into the hospital appear to be
getting sicker, more quickly, and while in the first three waves of
COVID-19, the medical staff felt that it could predict, to some degree,
who would get sick, and which people were most vulnerable to the
disease, it is no longer the case.
We're fooled everyday for what we thought and we're seeing a lot of
young people with no medical problems that were significant or it, he
said. I thought we had kind of turned the corner and on our way out of
this thing but the delta has truly thrown us a curveball.
Hospital workers overworked and overwhelmed.
The nationwide shortage of nurses has also left frontline workers
stretching their teams responsibilities, in an effort to meet all
patients' needs.
The amount of nurses is never enough, said Khan. We are redeploying
physicians. Thats how sick the patients are, and how fast they are
coming in. If we have 5, 10, 15 extra nurses, there will be a job for
them. Thats how many people are coming to the hospital.
MORE: Biden administration to begin rolling out booster shots the week
of Sept. 20 Teams are also ultimately facing the burden of the physical
and emotional toll yet another wave has placed on the staff.
We are already stressed in our job with the extra hours covering the
surge, and then when you see your patients, and worried about whats in
the lobby, worried about who is in the ambulance, am I going to be able
to get this heart attack out to the right place, will I find a place for
the patient to land? I worry a lot about our teams, Cuba concluded.
ABC News' Trevor Ault, Chris Donato, and Erica Baumgart contributed to
this report.