Healthcare workers are “strained and stressed” as Covid-19 hospitalization numbers rise in Shelby County.
That’s according to Kristen Bell, administrative director of nursing at Methodist Le Bonheur Germantown Hospital. Bell said usually summer is a time when there isn’t as much cold and virus activity, but Covid-19 hospitalizations here are peaking similar to winter numbers.
A Methodist spokesperson said that as of Wednesday, 286 patients are hospitalized due to Covid-19 across its system here. That’s the highest number since the start of the pandemic. Of those patients, 73 are in the ICU.
Bell said that Methodist Le Bonheur Germantown Hospital has needed to utilize its expansion department, its Covid-19 units are full, and the emergency department is “saturated.” Morale is down, according to Bell.
“It’s very much a capacity issue,” she said. “We are bursting at the seams. A bed isn’t clean for very long before we put someone else in it.”
Capacity isn’t the only concern, Bell said. The number of skilled workers able to provide specialized care to Covid-19 patients is also limited.
“People aren’t coming to the hospital because they have a nose bleed or need stitches,” Bell said. “These people are really sick and need a higher level of care.”
Bell said in June she believed the worst part of the pandemic was over, with several days of single-digit Covid-19 hospitalizations. But a couple weeks after the Fourth of July, the numbers started to tick upward again.
The only way to decrease the number of hospitalized cases is for more people to get vaccinated. The vast majority of patients hospitalized with Covid-19 are unvaccinated, Bell said.
“A lot of our nurses are disappointed and frustrated that more people haven’t gotten vaccinated,” Bell said. “The vaccine is our secret weapon. It’s how we get out of this. Why would you not bring your weapon to battle?”
As healthcare workers, Bell said nurses want “nothing more than to heal people, but it’s very hard to heal people once they get this virus.”
Mask Mandate
Emergency directors of Memphis hospital systems urged the city to reinstate a mask mandate in a letter Tuesday.
The letter, read to the Memphis City Council by the city’s chief operating officer Doug McGowen, predicts a crisis for hospitals if Covid-19 cases continue to surge.
The Covid-19 rate of hospitalizations is expected to double by the end of this month and increase six-fold by the end of September, McGowen said.
“Failure to provide mitigation strategies at this point will be catastrophic to the Mid-South and will affect health care at every level,” the letter reads.
The Shelby County Commission voted Wednesday in favor of a new 30-day universal mask mandate and reinstituting six-foot social distancing indoors.
