Jacksonville Baptist hospital staff say they hear panic, fear and regret from unvaccinated patients

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Healthcare workers at Baptist Medical Center in Jacksonville, Florida.

Healthcare workers at Jacksonville’s Baptist Medical Center in Florida hear panic, fear and regret from many of their patients as increasing numbers are admitted with complications from Covid-19 – and as many need to be put on ventilators .

“We’re getting ready to intubate the patient, which means putting him on a ventilator, and they said, ‘If I get the vaccine now, can’t I use the ventilator?’ So they’re begging him, “Chief Nurse Tammy Daniel told CNN. “They are desperate because they lack air, they cannot breathe, they are afraid, they feel like they are going to die.”

But by then, they are too late for a vaccine to stop their infection.

The Baptist Medical Center has seen its number of Covid-19 patients multiply every day, Daniel said. “We cannot open the beds quickly enough to meet the demand,” she said.

Florida is one of 32 states to have seen the average number of new cases in the past seven days increase by more than 50% from the previous week, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. But it’s one of only two states in which every county in the state is listed as having high transmission of Covid-19.

The wave is crushing at Baptist Medical Center, where 389 patients are being treated for Covid-19 – an increase of about 50% from a week ago. Of the new patients, 83 are on ventilators and are struggling to survive.

More than 99% of these patients are unvaccinated and the average age is around 50, said Michael Mayo, CEO of Baptist Health.

Dr Michelle Aquino said many of the patients who get very sick are young.

Last week, she admitted a 19-year-old and a 25-year-old for Covid-19, both in perfect health before their infections, she said.

“So you see these healthy people walking around saying I don’t need a vaccine, I’m fine if I get Covid, everything will be fine and that’s not true. With the Delta variant we have really saw that it’s not true, ”said Aquino.

Some patients said they were more concerned about the vaccines than the disease. Now they say they regret not having been vaccinated earlier.

This fear of vaccines is particularly frustrating, Aquino said, as there is still no meaningful and foolproof treatment for Covid-19.

“When patients come in we are very honest with them. We say it often does, we think it will help, we are not sure it will help, it might help, we hope it will help, but we ‘not sure and you take it day to day,’ Aquino said.

Everyone at Baptist Medical Center has lost patients to the virus in recent weeks, Aquino said, which has been emotionally distressing for staff who know most of these deaths could have been prevented.