Louisiana hospitals are under pressure as coronavirus cases rise: “Who can come help?” The | Coronavirus

Louisiana’s largest hospital, Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center in Baton Rouge, has been reduced to a single intensive care bed available in a worrying sign of the scarcity of health care resources accompanying the second wave of patients with coronavirus.

Hospital resources, particularly nurses and other professionals needed for intensive care unit staff, are running out in nearly every one of the state’s nine Health Department regions, according to data from hospital and hospital leaders. Health Department. In addition to the growing number of coronavirus patients coming in for treatment, healthcare providers say they are also seeing higher-than-normal demand for patients with other ailments, possibly because those patients have delayed treatment in the midst of the pandemic.

Louisiana experienced a similar increase in hospital use in April. But at the time, most of the demand for beds was in New Orleans and Baton Rouge, allowing resources and medical personnel to move from other parts of Louisiana, and neighboring states, to help manage the load of cases. This time, coronavirus cases are growing across Louisiana, even as other states, including Texas and Florida, are battling their own massive outbreaks, dimming prospects that aid may be on the way.

“There is no part of the state that can help. When a part of the state arises, there is no one who can come to the rescue, ”said Dr. Catherine O’Neal, OLOL’s medical director. “Everyone is too busy, who can come to help? If we are all going to peak at the same time, it is unfathomable how we are going to receive more patients. “

The Baton Rouge area was reduced to just 36 ICU beds available on Friday. Typically, about half of those places would be available only at OLOL.

O’Neal said that based on the trajectory of the cases, he hopes his hospital will have to start shutting down other hospital services to deal with the increase.

The 1,413 coronavirus patients in Louisiana hospitals are 2.5 times the number just a month ago. Although it is still less than the April peak of 2,134 patients with the coronavirus, both the number of cases and the number of hospitalized patients continue to increase and new challenges are making resources scarce.

There are problems throughout the state. In the Lake Charles area, available beds in the ICU fell to 10 on Tuesday. Fewer than 20 have been available since.

“If the current increase continues and those numbers continue to rise, I think we will be very concerned,” said Dr. Lacey Cavanaugh, medical director of the Lake Charles Department of Health region.

The Lafayette area has also been hovering around the 30 beds available, approximately 18% of its full capacity.

Dr. Tina Stefanski, medical director of the Department of Health of that region, said that all hospitals are in their “plans for increase” and are fighting to increase capacity.

“They are doing everything possible to increase capacity,” he said. “We cannot continue like this … at some point, that cannot be sustained.”

Ochsner Health, the state’s largest hospital chain, has seen the number of coronavirus patients at its facilities double across the state in recent weeks.

The problem is not primarily physical space or equipment. Conversely, there are not enough nurses and other staff to provide the intensive care that patients need. That is particularly true for people infected with COVID-19, whose conditions can quickly deteriorate.

And hospital resources are not being pushed to their limits by the coronavirus alone. Or at least not directly.

Cases have emerged in Louisiana beyond what has been seen in any other state that experienced a significant peak during the spring. The 13,954 new cases counted this week are almost four times more than the state registered a month earlier, before significant increases began to appear.

Compared to spring, O’Neal said a smaller percentage of OLOL patients are there because of the coronavirus. However, the hospital has seen a sharp increase in the number of other patients needing treatment.

Some of them are people who had to postpone major surgeries in the spring. But others appear to be individuals who may have delayed care on their own as hospitals filled with COVID patients, and are now experiencing more serious complications that require longer stays and thinner resources, she said.

The Lake Charles area faces its own unique problems. She is directly competing with Houston for nurses in the area and has seen many of her medical professionals leave after they tested positive for COVID-19, largely due to exposure outside the hospitals themselves, Cavanaugh said.

While the number of coronavirus deaths in the state has increased, a much more gradual increase than cases has been observed.

In the past two weeks, cases have increased by 64%, while the number of deaths has increased by 36%. On Friday, the health department said cases increased by 2,179 and 24 more people died.

In part, the data may reflect the progress of the disease, which can take weeks from the date of infection to the date it finally takes a patient’s life.

Experts say the death toll from the disease may be lower this time. This is in part because new cases have become younger in recent weeks and doctors have become more adept at treating the disease.

But rising hospitalizations remain a concern, said Dr. David Mushatt, an infectious disease expert at Tulane University.

“I think there is reason to believe that mortality will not be that high this time,” said Mushatt. “There is still the potential to overwhelm the system. It’s just a matter of math. Even if the death rate drops, if you have tens of thousands of sick people and 20% end up in the hospital and a third of that goes to the ICU, the numbers will continue to be very high. “