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HOLTON, Kan. (AP) – Small rural hospitals in Missouri and Kansas are spending more and more hours researching facilities to transfer patients to as they struggle to cope with the surge in coronavirus cases.
As area hospitals fill up with COVID-19 patients, small hospitals like the one in Holton, Kansas, are struggling to treat patients who do not have the disease but still need care.
“People just don’t stop having heart attacks or that sort of thing,” said Carrie Saia, CEO of Holton Hospital, located about 30 miles north of Topeka, Kansas. “I’m just worried that we are so consumed that we won’t really be able to deal with an emergency that arises.”
The urban and rural health care systems of Missouri and Kansas are closely linked, with small hospitals identifying patients who need more advanced care and transferring them to larger facilities in major cities, the Kansas City Star reported. . But lately, small hospitals have spent hours searching for beds for their patients at larger facilities in places such as Wichita, Kansas City, St. Louis and Springfield, Missouri.
When patients with COVID-19 stress the capacity of small hospitals, it is more difficult to care for patients with heart attacks, strokes, or other serious conditions.
“These patients, when they walk through our doors, honestly it’s a little scarier than COVID,” said Valarie Davis, administrator of Mercy’s small hospitals in Cassville and Aurora, Missouri. “We have to get them somewhere as fast as possible.”
And rural hospital administrators are increasingly worried about how the increasing number of patients is affecting their nurses and doctors.
“One of the nurses literally collapsed in front of me because of her concern for one of the patients, which is a wonderful thing but it takes its toll on the staff,” said Dennis Franks, CEO of 25-bed. Neosho Memorial Regional Medical Center in Chanute, Kansas. “They work a lot.”
Copyright 2020 AP. All rights reserved.
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