NAMPA, Idaho — In addition to facing a staffing shortage, Idahoans have questioned whether Gem State hospitals are facing an oxygen shortage as COVID-19 hospitalizations rise.
Oxygen is in high demand due to the sheer volume of COVID-19 patients that require it. At Minidoka Memorial Hospital in Rupert, one emergency physician said the facility has gone through the same amount of oxygen they would typically use over six months in just two weeks.
Closer to the Treasure Valley, St. Luke's in Boise houses an 11,000-gallon oxygen tank. That much oxygen used to last them weeks but now needs to be refilled every three days.
While Idaho hospitals are seeing an increased need for oxygen, there is not an oxygen shortage.
Norco Medical supplies oxygen to customers and hospitals across seven states, including Idaho. Currently, the amount of oxygen being used has increased so much that Norco installed a larger oxygen tank at Kootenai Health in Coeur d'Alene.
Right now, Norco is preparing to install a new system at St. Luke's in Nampa that would deliver the amount of oxygen needed for COVID-19 patients. They also plan to install a larger backup tank and vaporizer, the component that warms the liquid oxygen into a gas so it can be used.
A project like this would typically take four to six weeks to plan and complete, but because of the increased demand for oxygen, Norco is set to complete it in just four days.
The issue is not a supply shortage, rather an issue of getting the oxygen system where it needs to be to keep up with demand.
"When you add up the main tank and a backup tank at over 60 hospitals, you now have more than 100 tanks that are moving," Norco President Elias Margonis said. "We watch those tanks deplete faster than we're forecasting, so we're simply asking hospitals to conserve and be mindful of what they are using."
Before the COVID-19 hospitalization surge, Norco used to refill tanks when they got down to 30%. However, they now have to wait until they get down to 10-20% of their total capacity.
Despite the challenges presented by the increased need for oxygen, Margonis does not foresee an oxygen shortage in the future.
"I think we should all should be just generally concerned the pandemic is lasting as long as it is," he said. "Norco is doing what we need to do just like the hospitals are doing what they need to do and supply is strong, but everything does have a limit."
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