'We're stretched to our limit': COVID-19 patients now take up 20% of Dixie Regional Medical Center - St George News

GEORGE — Dixie Regional Medical Center has seen a substantial increase in new coronavirus patients in the past few days to the point that 20% of the capacity of the hospital is now filled with COVID-19 patients.

There are also now more COVID-19 patients needing intensive care in the hospital than that are the number of ICU beds usually available.

Between Saturday and Monday, there have been between 55 and 61 Southern Utah residents in the hospital for COVID-19 – the most since the start of the pandemic in March. .

Patrick Carroll, medical director of the hospital, said the issue is not the number of beds available or the supply of ventilators or personal protective equipment at the hospital.

The staffing issue is the most critical issue,” Carroll said.

But remember that these are these are critically ill patients,” Carroll said.

“As of today, we had the highest number of ICU patients that we’ve seen, and while I didn’t look specifically at the numbers historically for the last several years, I think it’s fair to say that we have more ICU patients today than we’ve ever had in the history of Dixie Dixie Regional Medical Center,” Carroll said.

There have already been traveling nurses brought in to Dixie Regional, and more are coming.

Rihannon Wanlass has been a nurse for 15 years, the last seven at Dixie Regional’s ICU.

People get sick from that, but it’s not been anywhere close to this,” Wanlass said.

Carroll had praise from what he said were a large number of Southern Utahns who hereded the warnings and kept Thanksgiving limited to their households and took other measures to prevent the spread of the virus.

Because of the gestation period of the virus, the effect of the holiday weekend won’t be showing up in the Utah Department of Health statistics for at least another week, and it will likely be another week after that before the Thanksgiving hospitalizations will be showing up at Dixie Regional – right around the time people will be gearing up for another family-heavy Christmas holiday. .

Part of the reason is, usually, a COVID-19 patient admitted to the hospital is there for at least 30 days.

New patients are piling on to those already in the hospital.

And in the last two weeks, 21 Southern Utahns have lost their lives to COVID-19, including another death reported in Washington County on Monday.

And time will tell whether or not this is a sustained flattening or decrease or whether it’s simply a blip,” Carroll said.

That they make more money because of more COVID-19 patients.

And even though the “Heroes Work Here” banners still fly outside the hospital, that criticism has become frustrating to face, Wanlass said, after another 12-hour shift. .

I wish people could understand,” Wanlass said?

New infections for major Southern Utah cities (numbers released ahead of Southern Utah numbers):