Frontline workers respond to hospitals near full capacity

CLEAR WATER (WQOW) – The surge of COVID-19 cases in northwestern Wisconsin is filling area hospitals to their capacity.

Officials at HSHS hospitals say intensive care units have reached or neared capacity in recent weeks, forcing patients to be admitted to the emergency room until beds become available. However, all local hospitals, including HSHS, say space is not the main concern, but rather a lack of staff.

“It’s a ratio of do we have enough people with the right amount of skill to care for the patients that we have, and can we continue to take the patients who need us?” asked Jen Drayton, head nurse at HSHS Sacred Heart Hospital.

The same is happening in the Mayo Clinic health system, where more than 300 employees are currently in quarantine due to exposure to COVID-19. For extra help, Mayo called in nurses from across the country to help him, and even retired nurses who haven’t worked with patients in years.

“I’ll be honest, I haven’t been at the bedside for 20 years,” said Pam White, chief nurse for the Mayo Clinic Health System Northwest Wisconsin. “When we planned where we would be today, you must have your blue scrubs ready to use. I have my blue scrubs ready to use, and they’re on.

At Marshfield Health Center, beds are also filling up and the workload is taking its toll on healthcare workers on the front lines.

“The front lines are ugly,” said Deanna North, ICU supervisor at Marshfield Health Center. “It’s horrible. It’s nothing I’ve always wanted to see in 20 years as a nurse, and it’s extremely difficult to be able to leave these things at work and come home to raise a family.

And if there’s one message that those on the frontlines want to send to the community, it’s to let everyone know that right now the virus is more real than ever.

“The things we see, I want the community to know is serious,” North said. “If Eau Claire and the Chippewa Valley can do anything to keep our intensive care beds open, wash your hands, wear a mask and stay home.”

Officials always stress that no intensive care patient is turned away, but some may be transferred to other hospitals on a case-by-case basis. All Eau Claire hospitals have an emergency plan in place when beds are fully full, where they can take turns taking care of emergency patients, so no hospital is more overwhelmed than the other.