BATON ROUGE, La. – On Thursday, July 23, Governor John Bel Edwards will hold a press conference on Louisiana’s response to COVID-19.
At Thursday’s press conference, the Lafayette General Health CMO, Amanda Logue, MD, and Our Lady of Lourdes CMO, Henry Kaufman, MD, joined Governor John Bel Edwards to give updates on their respective hospitals, which they say they are near capacity and are again delaying non-emergency procedures.
Edwards said hospitalizations are increasing across the state, but he is especially concerned with Regions 4 (Acadiana), 5 (Southwest) and 6 (Central).
Both Logue and Kaufmann urged Acadiana residents to follow established guidelines for people to wash their hands, practice 6-foot social distancing, avoid large crowds, and wear masks when leaving their homes.
Logue said the recent increase in cases in Acadiana is severely affecting hospital resources in Lafayette General.
Logue said that LGH is used to caring for patients in Acadiana and making transfers, but now they cannot do it as they would like.
She said taking care of patients locally has become a challenge and the hospital is quickly running out of space.
LGH has also had to transfer patients out of the area to Rapides Parish and other parts of the state.
Logue said that in July, LGH had to reject 87% of transfer requests to its health system, which is not normal for them.
She said that Lafayette General Medical Center currently has half of its ICU and a third of its non-ICU has patients who are currently fighting COVID.
Logue said that on May 27, LGMC had 15 patients with COVID-19, but yesterday morning there were 105. And in its five acute hospital systems, they have 143 patients with COVID, which was just 20 patients just six weeks ago.
Logue said he still wants the community to know that if someone needs emergency care, they should go to the emergency room, and they don’t want anyone to be afraid of getting emergency medical service if they need it.
According to Logue, LGH’s main campus has half its ICU and a third of non-ICU patients fighting COVID-19.
He added that they are seeing a rapid increase in the spread of COVID-19, which is leading to more hospitalizations in the area.
Logue said LGH is also moving elective surgeries that are unable to leave the main campus and canceling some altogether.
Logue said some of her hospital beds are closed due to staff illness and that they do not have enough nurses to attend to all of their beds.
“We really need to flatten the curve once and for all,” said Logue. He then urged Acadiana to follow established guidelines for people to wash their hands, practice 6-foot social distancing, avoid large crowds, and wear masks when leaving their home.
Kaufmann also said that at Our Lady of Lourde Regional Medical Center, her hospital is full and the ICU is almost full.
He said the increase in patients has significantly affected hospital operations and that they have almost completely eliminated elective surgeries in the hospital for the past two weeks.
He said this includes patients who have had to postpone procedures such as cardiac bypass, cancer surgeries, and mammograms.
Kaufmann also said that this includes some patients who have had to delay their procedures during the first months of the pandemic.
He said he is concerned that this is causing more complications for those who have to delay preventive care procedures, including mammograms.
Kaufman said Lourde has seen a 300% increase in cases from what they saw during the initial COVID-19 wave in Acadiana.
Kaufman admitted that he always anticipated a second wave, but thought it wouldn’t come until fall, when hospitals and medical personnel would have more time to prepare.
At a press conference on Tuesday, July 21, the governor announced that Phase 2 would be extended for another two weeks, until Friday, August 7.
The Phase 2 extension includes the mandatory governor mask requirement, the closure of bars for local consumption, and the indoor meeting limit for 50 people.
On Tuesday, the Governor stated that the increase in the number of cases had made Louisiana the second-largest nation in cases per capita, just behind New York.
See the latest LDH COVID-19 numbers here.
Watch the Governor’s press conference below:
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