Name: Montgomery mayor Steven Reed: Hospitals asked me to sound the alarm over ICU beds
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Montgomery mayor Steven Reed: Hospitals asked me to sound the alarm over ICU beds

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Montgomery AdvertiserView CommentsMontgomery Mayor Steven Reed said Thursday that the local intensive care unit numbers he shared a day earlier were given to him by hospital administrators, who asked him to spread the word that the city was almost out of ICU beds as the pandemic escalates here.Reed offered that context hours after Baptist Health released a statement addressing its local ICU capacity.At a press conference Wednesday, Reed told members of the media that Baptist hospitals in Montgomery and Prattville were and that some patients were being transferred to Birmingham for care. A day later, Reed went back in front of the media to explain that he presented those numbers after being “in constant communication” with Baptist and Jackson leaders.“We were told quite frankly the shortage in ICU beds that we had and where we were headed,” Reed said Thursday. “One of the CEOs mentioned this was a manageable situation but was not sustainable. Any time that you can see the cliff is coming you want to warn the people that you’re leading that there’s a cliff up there. You don’t want to wait until you get right up to it before you tell somebody.“… Any time I think the hospitals are sounding the alarms to us, that’s something that we have to take seriously because of … what the domino effect is in our overall health care system.”Baptist confirmed Thursday that hit had reached ICU capacity at times during the pandemic but that “this is not uncommon within typical hospital day-to-day operations.”The statement said the system has seen an increase in COVID-19 related hospitalization across facilities in Montgomery and Prattville over the past three weeks and has “made necessary adjustments” to manage that increase.“The availability of these beds is ever-evolving and the number of beds in use changes by the hour,” it said. The statement also clarified that patients have been transferred to Birmingham for care, but none for COVID-19-related care.Reed said he was told Wednesday by hospital administrators that patients were being diverted to Birmingham because of the lack of ICU beds here. He said he understands that the situation changes frequently, and his latest update Thursday was that Montgomery was down to about 3% of its total ICU capacity, including both COVID and non-COVID designated beds.More:“But we want to sound the alarm as it was sounded to us about what was needed for this community and for this region,” Reed said. “… People are being released, and we’re glad that people are being released. We’re glad that people are recovering. What we don’t want is for people to assume that we’re out of this and there’s no more danger.”Reed also said that he believes Alabama reopened too soon and reiterated that he was considering more citywide restrictions. Gov. Kay Ivey announced earlier in the day that the state was loosening some of its statewide orders and would allow entertainment venues, athletic facilities, schools and day cares to reopen.More:“(Ivey) has to, of course, look at things across this state. I certainly understand that,” Reed said. “… We’re following the data, and we’re following what’s going to be in the best interest of this city.“… Not everyone’s going to like it. Not everyone’s going to agree. That comes with the territory. But at the end of the day, people know that we’re making the best decision that we can make based on the information that we have.”Contact Montgomery Advertiser reporter Brad Harper at bharper1@gannett.com.View Comments

Montgomery AdvertiserView CommentsMontgomery Mayor Steven Reed said Thursday that the local intensive care unit numbers he shared a day earlier were given to him by hospital administrators, who asked him to spread the word that the city was almost out of ICU beds as the pandemic escalates here.Reed offered that context hours after Baptist Health released a statement addressing its local ICU capacity.At a press conference Wednesday, Reed told members of the media that Baptist hospitals in Montgomery and Prattville were and that some patients were being transferred to Birmingham for care. A...

Montgomery mayor Steven Reed: Hospitals asked me to sound the alarm over ICU beds

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