EDINBURG — With the continued rise in COVID-19 hospitalizations, DHR Health is finding itself in a similar position as it did last summer — opening up units for their COVID-positive patients. But while the need for the extra space is a bleak familiarity, the lack of nursing staff and the continuing demand for treatment among non-COVID patients has left the hospital system in arguably a worse position this time around.
Nearly two weeks ago, DHR Health reopened their Serious Infectious Disease Unit 2 for their COVID-positive patients and are already in the process of reopening SIDU 1, according to Dr. Robert Martinez, the chief medical officer for DHR Health, who spoke on the status of their COVID hospitalizations during a news conference on Friday.
SIDU 2, which can hold about 30 patients, was reopened first because of its smaller size and because it is easier to manager, Martinez explained. But now that unit is filling up, necessitating the use of SIDU 1 which can hold another 50 patients.
As of Friday, there were 57 people admitted with COVID-19 at DHR, according to Carlos J. Cardenas, board chairman for DHR Health. He pointed out that more than 90% of those patients were unvaccinated.
Cardenas added that 22 of the 57 patients were adults that were hospitalized in their intensive care unit and that 14 of them were on ventilators.
“We are here to do all that we can to help those in our community but we need everybody to step up and do their part,” Cardenas said. “What’s particularly distressing is when I hear people say that this is an illness only of the elderly, the obese or the infirmed when, in fact, the last 10 days of so, we have admitted 11 children between the ages 0 and 16.”
For all of the Rio Grande Valley, hospitalizations were at 600 as of Friday, down from 640 patients of the previous day but still higher than they’ve been since early February.
The current number of hospitalizations is also 22% than it was just a week prior and more than 90% higher than it was at the beginning of the month when there were 315 hospitalizations.
DHR is expected to reopen SIDU 1 within a few days, according to Martinez though he added that the preparations for that unit also depend on the staff they have available.
That staff, the lack thereof, is the most important factor on whether they’ll be able to handle more patients.
“What’s different is the significant need of staff,” Martinez said. “We’re hundreds short compared to where we were last time when the units were open.”
Local hospitals, along with those all around the country, have to deal with the loss of nursing staff who have either left to work for higher-paying agencies or have left the industry altogether due to burn out.
Here in the Rio Grande Valley, Martinez estimates hundreds have left their jobs at hospitals.
Earlier this week, Gov. Greg Abbott announced the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) would be deploying more than 2,500 medical personnel to assist hospitals care for the increasing number of COVID-19 patients.
Of those additional personnel, Martinez said DHR Health would be receiving 14.
“Five ICU nurses, three med-surg nurses and six respiratory technicians,” Martinez said. “That’s a drop in the bucket but we’ll take what we can get.”
With the continuing increase in patients, which is occurring at a faster rate than at any other time during the pandemic, Martinez said that even with the vaccines, it was possible for the situation to become as dire as it did last year when patients sometimes had to wait in ambulances for an available bed.
“We’re not far from there, we’re not far,” Martinez said. “I mean, we’re a day away, we just never know.”
The only reason DHR had not reached that point, Martinez said, was becuase of therapeutic drugs that have enabled them to treat patients and stabilize them enough to send them home.
“That’s something we didn’t have initially that now we’re really continuing to use aggressively and treating patients, so that also has been one of the reasons that we have not,” he said. “Otherwise, we would already be past that point.”
What’s also different this time around is that while people were afraid to go to hospitals at the beginning of the pandemic, that no longer seems to be the case as the demand for care for non-COVD reasons has persisted.
“People didn’t know what was going on, they were taking a lot longer to get better or they were getting worse so people were naturally scared of the hospital so they were delaying surgeries,” Martinez said. “They were just canceling, delaying surgeries so we had a natural decline. So those staff that we had, we could take and use over here.”
But now, not only are they short on staff but those non-COVID cases have continued.
“Those patients have continued to need their cancer care, they put it off last time, they can’t wait anymore,” he said.
While he didn’t want to discourage anyone from going to the emergency room or seeking care, Martinez said it was as important as ever to maintain the emergency room and their services available for those who were critically ill.
For those not dealing with COVID, he suggested they use other available resources, if possible, such as primary care physicians or urgent care clinics.
“I wish I could tell you that our nursing situation was identical to where it was a year ago but it’s not,” Cardenas said during the news conference. “We don’t have the state support that we have had in the past and there are fewer nurses in the community and, this is the truth, coast to coast.”
Cardenas reminded the public to get vaccinated and to do their part for the health of the community.
“Wear a mask, wash your hands, keep your distance and for God’s sake, get vaccinated,” he said. “We can fight back with the vaccine, that’s what we’ve got to do.”
