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CLEVELAND, Ohio – The Cleveland Clinic is now seeing its largest number of COVID-19 patients since last winter, resulting in long wait times in the clinic’s emergency departments and fewer non-essential surgeries.
Things should get worse. The clinic’s forecasts predict that the highest volumes of COVID-19 patients will come in the coming weeks, as this current pandemic wave peaks in northern Ohio, the hospital system said in a statement on Monday. .
About 460 patients – including 135 in intensive care units – are in the clinic’s Ohio hospitals. This is more than double the number of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 at the Clinic a month ago. The majority of these patients are not vaccinated, the hospital system said.
Statewide, unvaccinated people account for nearly 94% of recent coronavirus hospitalizations, according to data from the Ohio Department of Health.
“We urge our community to get vaccinated against COVID-19, as this continues to be the best protection against serious illness and death from COVID-19,” the clinic said.
In order to cope with increased demand for healthcare and staffing issues, patients are being transferred to different facilities in the healthcare system, the statement said.
Some locations, including the Cleveland Clinic Akron General, the Cleveland Clinic Mercy Hospital in Canton, and the Cleveland Clinic Union Hospital in Dover, schedule fewer non-essential surgeries requiring an inpatient stay.
Essential and urgent hospital surgeries – including heart, cancer, pediatric, transplant and neurological cases – will continue as planned, the clinic said.
The Clinic is not alone in facing staffing problems. Summa Health in Akron is reducing inpatient beds by more than 20% and temporarily halting some elective surgeries due to a nationwide staff shortage made worse by the pandemic, the Akron Beacon Journal reported today.
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