COVID is squeezing hospitals in Tennessee so tight, some of the region’s largest medical centers have declared themselves completely full. And the state is trying to help ease the pressure, to the degree it can.
Just because COVID is preoccupying a hospital doesn’t mean the usual stuff stops — gunshot wounds, traumatic car accidents, or in the case of Eric Bradford’s mother-in-law, a stroke. Not until he arrived at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville on Sunday did he realize the region’s largest hospital was technically at capacity.
“I never thought it could be possible that it could be a difficult time to be at the hospital,” he said while waiting in the parking garage. Visitors are, again, heavily restricted inside.
Bradford’s family has been able to receive timely emergency treatment, but health officials are warning residents if it’s not life or death, don’t tie up strained emergency departments.
Over the weekend, hospitalizations hit 2,200 — which is below the winter surge high of roughly 3,300. But some hospitals are even more stressed, mostly because of staffing.
A smaller pool
While the COVID vaccine is now protecting nurses from getting as sick or needing to quarantine, it wasn’t the finish line many nurses assumed it would be.
“Now, we’re on a marathon with, like, no ending. And I think that’s what the fourth wave is,” says Vanderbilt ICU nurse Sue Perron.
She’s been working with COVID patients in Tennessee since the beginning of the pandemic. But she recently backed off to be part-time in the ICU as an act of self preservation.
“Even though I absolutely love the ICU and would like to be the super ICU nurse I envisioned coming out of nursing school, I need a little bit of change of pace in order for me to go back and be 100% present for my patients,” she says.
And Perron is a nurse who has found a way to just cut back, not leave the profession altogether. Health officials say the pool of nurses is much smaller than it was at the start of the pandemic.
Tennessee Guard to work in more hospitals
On Monday, the state established criteria for hospitals to request help from the Tennessee Guard, and many more are expected to call for backup.
“Many more hospitals are nearing that point now than they did in December and January, so I do think you’ll see more guardsmen at hospitals than you did back in the winter,” says Dr. Lisa Piercey, the state’s health commissioner.
Teams were deployed to hospitals in Memphis and the Tri-Cities over the winter. The idea is not to have troops take over COVID units. Instead, guardsmen who have training as paramedics or nurses will fill more non-clinical roles to allow hospital staff to focus on the bedside.
The state has also restarted a grant program to help hospitals pay for contract nurses to come in from out-of-state. The cost for traveling nurses has climbed so high that it’s drawn some RNs out of Tennessee — exacerbating the staffing issue. One posting in Florida was offering $9,000 a week.
Meanwhile, the state has “decommissioned” its two alternative care sites built during the early months of the pandemic but never used. The problem isn’t space, at this point, but staffing.
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