Last week, Newman Regional Health said daily census numbers were in single digits between Dec. 29 and Jan. 4. Those numbers jumped back into double digits Jan. 5 and have stayed there since.
In its latest weekly COVID-19 Dashboard, the hospital said its daily patient census was anywhere from 10-15 between Jan. 5 and this past Wednesday, with patient numbers reaching the high of 15 this past Saturday. This is a different stat from Lyon County Public Health’s active hospitalization number of eight so far this week, but Newman Regional Health Chief Medical Officer Dr. Alana Longwell says the daily patient census includes patients being treated for infections and others recuperating from the virus — as well as other patients needing overnight stays for treatments unrelated to COVID.
Last week, Lyon County commissioners verbally approved an emergency declaration to help the hospital have access to ventilators through the state after its entire supply was in use. On KVOE’s On-Air Chat on Wednesday, Dr. Longwell said ventilators and other equipment is being used to help patients.
Available bed space has been tough to find for much of the pandemic, especially during a hard uptick in cases in November 2020 and at times in 2021. It’s extremely difficult now, according to Motient Utilization Management co-founder Dr. Richard Watson.
Motient helps hospitals, especially Critical Access facilities like Newman Regional Health, move patients between medical facilities by offering personnel for ground ambulance and helicopter trips and also by making calls to find available beds. This week, Watson says 85 percent of the people Motient is seeing need beds, and about that same percentage are COVID patients. The vast majority of hospitalized COVID patients now need ICU beds.
Thursday’s Dashboard says the median transfer time is now a bit over two hours, down from five hours last week. It can take close to two days to transfer patients. Just two weeks ago, transfers could take up to nine days, depending on the situation.
