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As the crush of new COVID-19-related hospitalizations stretches state hospitals to their limits, the Mayo Clinic Health System is taking unprecedented steps to increase the capacity of its sites in northwestern Wisconsin. These include moving beds to waiting rooms, surgical spaces and even a parking garage.
It has been just over a week since the Mayo Clinic announced that 100% of its hospital beds in Northwestern Wisconsin were full. That number fluctuates from hour to hour, but emergency room doctor Paul Horvath said hospitals and emergency rooms have been forced into what is known as “hijack status”.
“I worked as a shift in one of the emergency departments the other night,” Horvath said, “and literally all the beds in Northwestern Wisconsin were full, and the hospitals just weren’t. not able to admit new patients. Which meant I had the challenge of handling ICU level care in my emergency department for hours on end, which obviously isn’t a routine. “
A recent increase of 20 patients at the Mayo Hospital Barron forced staff to move some patients in a room designed to prepare people for surgery, said Horvath. He said when emergency departments fill up, paramedics must find new places to bring patients who are further away and may not have the same level of staff or equipment to treat critically ill patients.
Horvath said from a patient perspective, the team of doctors and nurses all looked the same in their layers of personal protective equipment. Sound monitors and patients’ hasty, labored breathing also make communication more difficult. Horvath said he sometimes felt like yelling at patients and staff to cut the noise.
Sue Cullinan is an emergency physician at the Eau Claire Hospital of the Mayo Clinic. On October 12, she recorded video diary entries detailing how the hospital was preparing for the continuing surge in new admissions.
“Our intervention plan expands to the garage, it opens more beds, we expand into lobbies, we put people where we wouldn’t normally place patients,” Cullinan said.
“Not where I would like to put my grandfather or grandmother,” she said, although it “has to happen”.
Four beds with privacy curtains have been installed in the heated ambulance garage. A spokesman for the Mayo Clinic said they had not had to use them.
The increase in the number of patients weighs on the emotional and physical staff
On November 22, the Wisconsin Department of Health Services reported 208 new hospitalizations due to COVID-19. According to DHS, 2,076 patients are hospitalized for COVID-19 statewide.
At the same time as health systems are inundated with new patients, they are responding with fewer staff. A spokesperson for the Mayo Clinic Health System told WPR as of Nov. 20, 239 staff in Wisconsin were out of work due to infections or exposure to COVID-19.
Pam White is the Mayo Clinic Chief Nurse for Northwestern Wisconsin. She said she was receiving temporary help from across the country.
“We have nurses from Arizona, from the Mayo Clinic in Arizona, who have moved here, and they will be here… for about five weeks,” White said. “We backed Arizona when they jumped in July, and they’re giving it back to us now.”
White said he also called former nurses who retired in the past two years, but are still licensed, while transferring staff from small clinics to help hospitals.
Tending to the surge in COVID-19 patients has been emotionally draining for staff, White said, especially as visitor restrictions have prevented family from visiting relatives in hospital. White cried as he described how one of his employees called the wife of a man who was about to be intubated and was unsure if this would be the last time they would speak.
“It happens every day,” she says. “We have families dying in hospital. It’s really difficult from a health care perspective because people can drive past the hospital and it looks normal. The walls are nothing different outside the hospital. It’s everything that is going on inside the hospital that is really very stimulating and it’s hard to appreciate until you have really experienced it. “
The outbreak continues to grow as hospitals search for solutions
Since the start of November, Wisconsin has set several records for the number of positive COVID-19 tests and new hospitalizations. For the president of the Wisconsin Hospital Association, Eric Borgerding, this does not bode well.
“That tells me, number one, that we are extremely stressed out right now,” Borgerding said. “And number two, based on those positivity numbers, it’s not going to slow down anytime soon. So that’s the real concern.”
Hospitals across the state have been creative in finding new spaces to treat patients, Borgerding said, but the capacity of hospitals is only useful if there are enough healthcare workers to staff it. .
Borgerding called the rate at which the coronavirus has spread across Wisconsin “amazing.” He said it took Wisconsin almost six months to reach 100,000 positive tests. Then, Borgerding said, it only took 36 days for positive results to reach 200,000 and another 18 days to reach 300,000.
“Wisconsin has shown an inability, at least at the state level, to take action related to masking or limiting the size of gatherings,” Borgerding said. “Whether that can happen in any way, through legislation or some sort of collaboration or cooperation between the legislature and the governor, I think remains to be seen.”
The Wisconsin Supreme Court could render a decision any day in a lawsuit challenging the emergency powers Governor Tony Evers was using to issue the statewide mask warrant. In May, the court overturned the Evers administration’s “Safer at Home” order to limit gatherings.
Borgerding said that at “a minimum”, local governments should be allowed to make health decisions for their communities. But some attempts by cities to restrict capacity inside companies have also been challenged and overturned in court. Some county health departments lobbied for local restrictions only to see them rejected by council supervisors.
COVID-19 “ He almost killed me ”
Mike Davis, of Eau Claire, is someone who has dealt with COVID-19 mortality as a health worker and patient. As an adult echo stenographer, he used ultrasound to see how people’s hearts fill with blood when COVID-19 prevents their lungs from receiving enough oxygen.
Davis, 60, described himself as a rude farm boy from northern Wisconsin who felt like he was 40 before he started to feel exhausted in late August. Suspecting COVID-19, he said he went to the emergency room and was tested but the results remained negative. The severity of Davis’ illness was not clear until he watched the Packers beat the Vikings on September 13.
“I don’t remember that – my wife told me when I wasn’t watching the Packers game – I went to the bathroom and my lips were blue, “Davis said.” So she took me to the emergency room and I was intubated. They took fluids in my lungs. And the fluid in my lungs tested positive for COVID right away. “
Davis said his body routinely succumbed to the virus and his heart rate dropped to around 30 beats per minute several times. The first thing he remembers, he said, was waking up to his respiratory therapist’s voice telling him to take deep breaths.
“I used to say I wish I could have gotten the COVID so I could kick it up and send it home,” Davis said. “But I was stupid because it was real, and it really… pretty much killed me, you know, and thank God for the care. I never would have.”
Davis is still recovering from the illness over a month later. He said now that he was a 60-year-old man who felt like he was 85, had lost muscle tone, stamina and lung capacity, although he was improving day by day. day. Davis said he takes rehabilitation seriously, so he can be there for his nine children and 13 grandchildren.
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