MISSION, Kan. (AP) — Patients are dying in emergency rooms of small Kansas hospitals as larger hospitals that are struggling with soaring staff absences and COVID-19 cases turn down transfers.
Hospitals across the state painted a dire picture Wednesday of worsening conditions as the highly contagious omicron variant collides with a delta surge. They urged public officials to require masks and impose emergency declarations that could free up more resources, saying they are struggling to keep up with the demand for testing and that surgeries are being delayed and clinics canceled.
“This is hands down the toughest surge the medical community has had to face since the pandemic began in 2020,” said Dr. Steve Stites, chief medical officer at University of Kansas Health System in Kansas City, Kansas, during a briefing with more than a dozen chief medical officers and infectious diseases doctors.
Stites said his hospital is treating 128 COVID-19 patients, more than three times as many as a month ago, and has deferred nearly 130 surgeries, including one to remove cancerous lung nodules, after 640 staff members called out sick.
The briefing came as Kansas once again reported a record high for the average number of new cases a day over seven days, 4,311 for the seven days ending Wednesday, according to state data.
Motient, a company contracted by Kansas to help manage transfers, said there has been a fivefold increase in patients dying while waiting to be transferred.
“Those patients are upwards 20 hours plus in the emergency room and then passing while waiting for transfer to another facility,” said Dr. Richard Watson, founder of Motient. “It speaks truly to not challenging situations, but true crisis situations.”
Salina Regional Health has been limiting surgeries because of a staffing crunch that has made it difficult to keep up with the surge in patients and demand for testing, said Dr. Robert Freelove, the hospital’s chief medical officer.
He said another hospital official recently sent him a note expressing thanks that the Salina hospital had accepted a patient who was having a heart attack. The official told Freelove that two patients had died in the past two weeks while waiting to be transferred.
“We didn’t have room,” Freelove said. “Nobody had room and those patients died non-COVID related deaths that probably could have been prevented.”
HCA Midwest Health is treating a pandemic high 250 COVID-19 patients at its Kansas City area hospitals, said Dr. Kim Megow, the chief medical officer. She said the emergency departments are slammed and at least 190 workers have called out sick so far Wednesday.
“And as we track that we see no end yet, no peak,” she said, adding that the hospital is canceling surgeries. “So it’s still really climbing just almost vertically if you look at the charts.”
Megow said an emergency declaration in Kansas as well as Missouri would be “extremely helpful,” noting that it would allow hospitals to exceed their licensed capacity. She said it also would provide a pathway for the state to request help from the National Guard.
Pediatric cases also are on the rise at a time when when districts have lifted mask mandates.
Children’s Mercy is treating a pandemic-record 30 COVID-19 in-patients, nearly a third hospitalized in intensive care, said Dr. Jennifer Watts, the chief emergency management medical officer. She also said 327 staff were out sick Tuesday and the number continues to rise.
