Name: Citing COVID surge, HealthPartners says 90 percent of its hospital beds are full
Brand: twincities.com
SKU: twincities-com-91
Availability: OnlineOnly

critic

Citing COVID surge, HealthPartners says 90 percent of its hospital beds are full

preview

By | | Pioneer PressLittle more than two weeks ago, paramedics informed Dr. Bjorn Westgard that every medical bed in the metro was full and there was no place within a short drive to send emergency room patients.“‘We managed to send this one over to you, but Woodwinds (Hospital) just sent another one over to Duluth,'” recalled Westgard, a senior staff physician and research director at Regions Hospital in downtown St. Paul.Since then, demand for beds has increased, and medical professionals have no illusions about what’s to come. The Thanksgiving holiday will only make things worse.HealthPartners, the health system that runs Regions, announced Tuesday that 91 percent of its medical/surgical beds throughout Minnesota and Wisconsin are now occupied, the latest evidence of surging COVID-19 numbers.Currently, 211 COVID patients are hospitalized in HealthPartners facilities, up from 152 patients a week ago.“We have not been crushed,” said Westgard, noting Regions has opened up overflow beds and is quickly filling them. “We’re still functioning, but we’re over 100 percent capacity at Regions. Crushed should not be the measure. ‘Cannot function anymore’ should not be the measure.”Officials said 31 of the new patients were admitted Monday, and 89 percent of HealthPartners intensive care unit beds are now occupied. Among HealthPartners patients tested for COVID-19, the positivity rate — or percentage testing positive — has remained above 15 percent.Of special concern, said Westgard, is the fact that in rural areas, smaller “critical access” hospitals with 25 or fewer acute care inpatient beds tend to send especially serious patients to metro-area hospitals, as well as major medical facilities in Duluth, Rochester and Fargo.When those larger facilities fill, “it impacts the entire state,” he said.HealthPartners officials said in a written statement they were sharing the information to educate the public about the seriousness of the pandemic, and urged residents to continue handwashing, socially distancing and wearing masks.While older people account for the majority of the hospitalizations, increasing numbers of younger people — including middle-aged patients — are arriving at hospitals with serious health needs.In August and September, the HealthPartners system admitted 113 patients with COVID-19 ages 20 to 49. In October and the first half of November, those numbers jumped to 207 patients in the same age range, an increase of 83 percent.Hospital officials said they expect the numbers of relatively young patients to keep trending upward this month. Skeptics have pointed to the relatively small numbers of deaths involving young people as evidence concerns are overblown, but Westgard said survivors sometimes face grueling recoveries.“If you focus exclusively on deaths, you’re missing a big part of the picture,” he said. “There’s a substantial number of people who are going to come out of this with chronic (health issues). To suggest it’s only a problem of old people is sort of wishful thinking.”The virus is impacting all age groups, he said. “I’m not trying to scare people, but when you get into the degree of community spread that we have, the law of large numbers takes over. It doesn’t matter if it’s a small percentage of people affected, it ends up being a big number regardless.”Despite the rising case counts, Westgard and other hospital officials are urging non-COVID patients who need medical care not to delay seeing a doctor. The health system noted in a statement: “HealthPartners physicians continue to see patients in emergency departments with poorer prognoses because they waited to seek emergency care.”Delayed care is more likely to result in longer hospital stays and higher occupancy rates, as well as poorer health outcomes. Most emergency departments have taken care to keep patient arrivals segregated from COVID patients, among other precautions intended to keep patients and doctors safe from the virus.The rate of new hospitalizations in Minnesota continues to climb. In the last two days, nearly 200 new COVID patients have been admitted to hospitals statewide. There are now 1,669 patients hospitalized, including 346 in critical condition in Minnesota.We invite you to use our commenting platform to engage in insightful conversations about issues in our community. We reserve the right at all times to remove any information or materials that are unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable to us, and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy the law, regulation, or government request. We might permanently block any user who abuses these conditions.Sign up for Newsletters and AlertsFollow UsMost PopularClose

By | | Pioneer PressLittle more than two weeks ago, paramedics informed Dr. Bjorn Westgard that every medical bed in the metro was full and there was no place within a short drive to send emergency room patients.“‘We managed to send this one over to you, but Woodwinds (Hospital) just sent another one over to Duluth,'” recalled Westgard, a senior staff physician and research director at Regions Hospital in downtown St. Paul.Since then, demand for beds has increased, and medical professionals have no illusions about what’s to come. The Thanksgiving holiday will only make things...

public

Frederick Melo

Twin Cities news, sports, politics, entertainment and business from the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Minnesota's first newspaper.

Citing COVID surge, HealthPartners says 90 percent of its hospital beds are full

No article scores yet.

CRITIC REVIEWS

PUBLIC REVIEWS