Hospital officials address COVID-19 outbreak, begging New Mexicans to get vaccinated

Hospitals are reverting to more restrictive visitor policies, while keeping the same procedures in place that helped mitigate the spread of the virus last year.

“While we have enormous experience and know how to keep our hospital and staff safe, we are also in an environment where we are dealing with a totally different virus in terms of transmissibility and a slightly altered population. “said Dr Rohini McKee, Quality and Safety Manager at UNM Hospital.

Health officials said hospitals were already full – not because of COVID-19 patients, but because of all the patients who postponed care during the pandemic last year. Officials said it was not clear whether or not the state might see another call to postpone elective proceedings.

“We also don’t want to postpone too many cases, let’s cite ‘elective’ cases, because some of those cases then turn into urgent cases, which we don’t want for our patients,” Gonzales said.

Staffing also adds another level of concern.

“There’s a lot less availability right now for us, any of us, to hire more staff. There just isn’t the same availability of traveling nurses,” Gonzales said.

Therefore, hospital officials are begging New Mexicans to get vaccinated.

“So if you are grateful to healthcare workers, please get vaccinated. That’s our message to you,” McKee said.

Health experts said there was a clear trend – those who aren’t vaccinated are more likely to end up in the hospital.

“There is an indication that we are back in another wave,” said Gonzales. “Evidence shows COVID-19 is now an unvaccinated pandemic. In New Mexico, 93% of hospitalizations are unvaccinated.”

At the start of the pandemic, COVID-19 hit older New Mexicans the most with underlying health issues. Now hospital officials are seeing a shift in those demographics.

“We see people in their twenties, thirties, forties, fifties,” Sandoval said. “We are seeing people who don’t have chronic, underlying, immunocompromised diseases. These are people who are relatively healthy, who aren’t vaccinated, who have been exposed, who are now developing serious illness.”

Health officials have even noted an increase in pediatric cases.