Capacity and personnel issues at MVHS

As the number of COVID-19-related hospitalizations continues to rise, the Mohawk Valley health system now recognizes that there are capacity issues, but the biggest issue they face is staff shortage.

Chief Medical Officer Dr Kent Hall held a media briefing on Thursday.

Currently, 211 patients are hospitalized at MVHS.

“We are rapidly approaching the capacity of the Mohawk Valley health system,” Hall said. “We implemented the emergency plan that we developed in the spring and which allowed us to welcome many more patients than we would normally have at this time of year.

From Monday, non-essential procedures will be suspended.

“Unless life or physical integrity is threatening or something related to a cancer diagnosis or something like that, we are really not moving forward with these procedures at this time,” Hall said.

Although MVHS has not reached capacity, a staff shortage is making things more difficult.

“There was already a pre-existing nursing shortage, a shortage of 1.2 million across the country,” Hall said. “Add to that, nurses are human beings who are going to get sick. We currently have a number of our employees with COVID and therefore are unable to work.

Hall says MVHS is still able to take care of patients, but said their staff are tired.

A nurse who works at St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center spoke to NEWSChannel2 about her concerns.

“We have rooms and beds available at the hospital, but there is absolutely no staff to look after them,” said Lily Werenczak. would be 1 nurse for every 5 patients, so they almost triple what would be considered safe by many standards.

She says she wants hospital leaders to be more aggressive in their search and recruitment for more nurses and staff.

“The patients are in tremendous pain, it brings tears to my eyes, tears to the eyes of other nurses and healthcare workers, not being able to provide the care patients deserve,” Werenczak said.

Hall says they’re doing what they can. He says they are working with national staffing companies to try to recruit more staff. He also says that is why they are stopping the elective procedures.

“We calculate that by doing this we will probably free up about 28 to 30 nurses and about 12 to 15 clinical assistants who can help nurses in the field,” Hall said.