Our local hospital is having more and more difficulties finding a hospital that can take more critical patients.
From the hospital on Sunday:
From the hospital on Sunday:
Quote:
Surging coronavirus numbers are threatening to exhaust local healthcare resources. That was a headline in the Canadian Record last week and it is a growing concern in almost all of our area hospitals.
Jonathan Bailey, Hansford County Hospital District administrator, said it is real. "As we start seeing more and more coronavirus cases, that means we will start seeing more hospitalizations. That's what you're seeing in the whole region. Amarillo, Lubbock, all the big hospitals are full with their patients and the surrounding communities' patients. That leaves us kind of in a bind. When we have a patient that needs a higher level of care, that means we have to start searching for other options. Amarillo is full, Lubbock is full, and more of the state hospitals are full so we have to find other options in other states and further south," Bailey explained.
He shared a story from a couple of weeks ago about a patient that needed to be transferred out. It took nearly three hours and almost 45 calls to find a hospital that would take the patient and they were successful only because they happened to call a hospital in Midland right as a bed opened up when a patient was discharged.
Bailey reiterated what they have been saying all along. "Wear your mask. Wash your hands. Try to avoid social gatherings as much as possible, if not for yourself, for the healthcare providers. I can tell you the staff throughout the region are getting overrun, getting fatigued, and they are still doing what they need to do but it's definitely been a long haul."
According to an Ochiltree General Hospital employee, the virus has blown up to the extent that OGH is accepting patients from other areas for treatment. They accepted patients from other ERs or hospitals over the weekend.
