Chasing Life

Chasing Life

 

It’s hard for me to hear and report on this again but hospitals across the United States are facing a crisis once more.   As of Monday morning, more than 96,000 hospital beds are filled with Covid-19 patients nationwide -- contributing to the 77% of all hospital beds across the country being currently in use, according to data from the US Department of Health and Human Services. About 80% of intensive care unit beds are in use.   In Arkansas, Gov. Asa Hutchinson said during a news briefing last week that there were only 23 ICU beds available statewide.   In Kentucky, Gov. Andy Beshear told CNN last week that while hospitals were not yet at the point of needing to make tough choices about rationing care, "we are right at" or "quickly approaching that point."   In Alabama, a mourning family has issued a plea to others to get vaccinated after Ray DeMonia, a Cullman, Alabama resident, died about 200 miles from his home, in a Mississippi hospital, because there were no cardiac ICU beds nearby.   “All hospitals and health systems have plans in place to deal with a surge in patients. like adding beds, including in non-traditional areas of care like a cafeteria or parking lot, shifting patients between hospitals, and working with their local and state health departments to find other sites of care," Akin Demehin, director of policy at the American Hospital Association, wrote in an email to CNN. Hospitals can also divert to other hospitals in nearby states or localities as well as prioritize emergency procedures over elective treatments.   Once hospital beds are short, doctors and nurses may have to consider other criteria as to who gets care, said Art Caplan, professor of bioethics at NYU Langone Health in New York. For instance, he said, if a hospital is short on beds or mechanical ventilators, they can prioritize care for patients who are seen as more likely to respond to the care and survive -- meaning a 26-year-old Covid-19 patient with no underlying health conditions could get care rather than a 90-year-old patient with lung failure and other medical problems.   And it’s not just a matter of beds and patients. "Hospitals and health systems entered the COVID-19 pandemic already facing a shortage of skilled caregivers, and the last 18 months have exacerbated that," wrote Demehin.   It’s hard to see my colleagues and friends be at a point where our hospitals are overrun. But what’s harder to stomach is that it doesn’t have to be this way. The vaccines we have are safe and highly effective against severe disease. Vaccination isn’t a matter of just protecting yourself, but protecting our health care system.