BOISE, Idaho — In Late October and early November, Idaho health care providers explained to the community that hospital capacity and resources could be stretched very thin because of the growing number of hospitalizations attributed to coronavirus. Some providers feared that by Christmas portions of Idaho could hit crisis levels of care.
Dr. Laura McGeorge is part of the St. Luke's Health administrative team. The hospital has not yet hit critical levels, but that there is plenty of stress on their system.
COVID-19 and intensive care bed availability fluctuate hour-to-hour.
When things got very serious a number of weeks ago, St. Luke’s began to create more resources by pushing back certain surgeries. Since then they have also focused on creating more staffing to care for the influx of COVID-19 patients.
"The other thing we've done since then is we have continued to add staff. We have some outpatient staff that have now been leveraged to work in the hospital," McGeorge said. "We've done some retraining with them to have them help lean in and add to our staffing in the hospital. So, I would say today it's slightly better we certainly aren't in that dire situation we were right then but again things can change really quickly."
Dr. Michael Born, chief medical officer at Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise, said they also have worked to retrain and shuffle around staff from other departments to maintain resources. St. Alphonsus has not hit critical levels of capacity, but certainly are dealing with an influx of COVID-19 patients.
"It's somewhat sobering," Born said. "While we have seen a slight decrease in our inpatient COVID census we certainly aren't out of the woods."
The situation at St. Luke's is not much different.
"I would say capacity is not dire today, but it is touch and go and we are continuing to watch it very, very closely," McGeorge said. "We are not out of the woods, were not even near the edge of the woods."
According to records earlier on Monday, St. Luke's in Nampa had 50% of their inpatient capacity filled by COVID-19 patients. That is a tremendous amount of COVID-19 hospitalizations for one hospital and is an example of how a bad outbreak at a place like a long-term care facility could push a hospital over the top, according to McGeorge.
In general, it certainly isn't easy, but hospitals in Southwest Idaho are getting by right now.
Heading into Christmas and New Year’s, there are continued concerns about increased daily case counts that translate to increased hospitalizations.
To avoid escalating where Idaho is currently at, health care professionals are urging communities to take COVID-19 guidance serious and make personal sacrifices for the holidays.
"We are living through a paradox. Obviously, it's somber, it's sobering when we see the burden of the disease on members of the community, but there is hope," Born said. "But that hope is dependent on our continued discipline to maintain social distancing, wear masks, wash our hands, avoid crowds."
St. Luke's receives a lot of questions from the community about how they can best support healthcare workers and let them know they are appreciated. While health care workers really do love the dinners provided and the driveways shoveled, the best gift you can give them this year is following COVID-19 guidelines and encouraging the people around you to do the same, according to McGeorge.
"The number one thing you can do is show your support by wearing masks and distancing," she added. "I can tell you, I hear over and over again from health care workers when they finish their shift and they are exhausted and they go home and they see people out in the community not following these things it is just so disheartening for them. The best way they can show their support is just by following the CDC guidelines."
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