As COVID-19 numbers increase throughout the state and hospitals fill with patients, there are a dwindling number of beds available in their intensive care units — including at hospitals in the Golden Triangle.
Baptist Memorial Hospital-Golden Triangle had four beds available in its ICU as of Wednesday afternoon, Baptist Chief Medical Officer James Martin said in an email to The Dispatch. The ICU holds 18 beds total.
Meanwhile, at OCH Regional Medical Center in Starkville, some ICU patients are now in beds in the hospital’s emergency room, something Director of Marketing and Public Relations Mary Kathryn Kight said is happening to hospitals all over the country.
“The ER nurses have the capability to also provide that acute level of care for ICU patients down in the ER, and so many hospitals have turned to that this year when there are no ICU beds available,” she said.
OCH has six ICU beds, and six COVID-19 patients in need of intensive care. There are 17 COVID-19 patients total in the hospital, up from only five this time last month.
Baptist has 31 COVID-19 patients not in the ICU and seven in the ICU, Martin said. He said those numbers have been fairly consistent for the last month.
The number of positive COVID-19 cases has been growing in Lowndes and Oktibbeha counties, with 3,430 cases and 2,950 respectively as of Monday, according to the most recent data from Mississippi State Department of Health.
There are also 1,130 cases in Clay County, though a representative from North Mississippi Medical Center in West Point did not return calls from The Dispatch to answer questions about the hospital’s ICU unit.
Both Martin and Kight said despite the growing number of cases, they are not worried about the hospitals becoming overrun.
“We will not run out of beds,” Martin emphasized in the email. “But we have a surge plan to open up more beds in our PACU (Post Anesthesia Care Unit) and PCU (Progressive Care Unit) if needed.”
Kight said OCH will continue to utilize the ER for extra ICU patients.
“Unfortunately that’s the case statewide right now,” she said. “We’re going to do whatever it takes to take care of our community and right now that means having three ICU patients in the ER.”
Both hospitals also have the capability to send patients to other hospitals if needed.
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 41 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
