Concerns Over Hospital Capacity

By Gordon HopkinsNebraska Governor Pete Ricketts has made protecting hospital capacity a priority of his COVID-19 pandemic policy. On Wednesday, September 29, the Governor announced the state was extending a Directed Health Measure (DHM) intended to address hospital staffing shortages. Initially, the DHM was set to expire on September 30, 2021. With the extension, the DHM will remain in force through October 31 unless extended again.This DHM suspends inpatient Class D and Class E elective surgeries for all Acute Care, Critical Care, and Children’s Hospitals in Nebraska. These are elective surgeries that can wait four weeks or longer without substantially changing a patient’s outcome.The stated purpose of the DHM is to protect hospital capacity. According to the most recent data available as of press time from the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), only 22 percent of staffed hospital beds in Nebraska are currently available, down from 24 percent a week ago, and only 15 percent of ICU beds.Lana Likens, Director of Public Relations for Jefferson Community Health and Life, recently told FJN, “JCH&L has 17 inpatient beds. Our census has been running from about 3 to 6 inpatients per day. We have had a few times in the past few months when we were nearly full, with a variety of different patient diagnoses. We have had a few COVID-19 patients, but so far our 6 COVID rooms available have been sufficient for our COVID-care needs. We have transferred a few COVID patients to Lincoln hospitals, and have had a few instances where it was difficult to transfer a patient to Lincoln because no beds were available.”Alan Rosenthal, Director for Ambulance District #33, echoed this assessment when he gave Jefferson County Commissioners a report on Tuesday, September 26.“The hospitals in Lincoln have been at capacity,” said Rosenthal. “The hospital here has had to keep patients that they want to transfer just because they don’t have anywhere to transfer them to. So we’ve been seeing that quite a bit over the last month especially.”However, Rosenthal noted this is not always the case, “Sometimes they’ll have availability and then it seems like they don’t. And then they do and then they don’t. So it seems like they run right on the brink.”Ambulance District #33 is also seeing an increased call volume that began with the pandemic and shows not signs of abating. Rosenthal said, “We’re at 80 (calls) for the month again. Just out of curiosity, I average the last six months and we’re averaging 91 calls a month.”Commissioner Gale Pohlmann asked, “What do you attribute this to? Is it still due to COVID?”“I don’t know,” said Rosenthal. “It’s just continued on. So I don’t know if this is kind of a new normal for us, because we’ve been like this for almost a year. I think if we stay on the pace that we’re at, right now, I think this year, we’ll finish with over 1,100 calls. And I think last year we were just short of 1000.”“In the last month or so, we have seen a pretty significant uptick in our COVID patients that we’ve been transporting,” Rosenthal added. “We deal quite a bit with more elderly patients but I don’t think it’s significantly more than usual. It’s just, we’ve just been busier for the last year so, I guess. I can’t attribute it to any one thing.”

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