MANSFIELD – Richland County hospitals are preparing for another surge in COVID-19 patients.
There have been 1,905 new COVID-19 cases, 66 hospitalizations and 21 deaths among Richland County residents between Dec. 1 and 23, according to the Ohio Department of Health.
“After Thanksgiving, OhioHealth Mansfield Hospital saw a dramatic increase in COVID-19 cases,” said Gavin Baumgardner, vice president of clinical affairs at OhioHealth’s Mansfield and Shelby Hospitals.
“It is projected that this surge will meet or exceed the largest surge, which was last December.”
Avita Health System is also seeing the effects of a rise in cases.
“In the current wave, we’ve experienced a record number of COVID patients admitted to our hospitals,” said Chris Adler, Director of Safety, Security, and Emergency Management at Avita Health System.
Adler told Richland Source that as of Monday, Avita was averaging between 3 to 4 COVID hospitalizations per day across its three hospital locations in Ontario, Bucyrus and Galion.
Meanwhile, Ohio set a new record high Thursday with 15,989 new cases reported by the Ohio Department of Health.
Both OhioHealth and Avita are anticipating a continued rise in numbers as the highly contagious Omicron variant continues to spread. The first two Ohioans with confirmed Omicron cases tested positive on Dec. 7.
“At the start of December, we were expecting the surge to peak at the beginning to middle of January. At this time, we are caring for patients with the Delta variant,” Baumgardner said.
“Now that there is a growing concern with the Omicron variant, we do not yet know how this variant could change projections. This could be very concerning if the hospital is already at high capacity with the current wave of patients.”
Baumgardener said the hospitals are currently seeing the highest critical care rates since the onset of the pandemic, in part because of more urgent cases among younger patients.
“Because we are caring for younger COVID-19 patients, such as those under the age of 60, who need high flow oxygen or a ventilator, (they) seem to tolerate that care longer than an older patient,” he explained. “Some are slowly recovering and requiring a longer length of stay.”
Representatives from both OhioHealth and Avita provided Richland Source with statistics on their current patient loads, but noted that these statistics can change from minute to minute.
As of Monday, 45 percent of all inpatients at Avita were COVID positive. Almost 100 percent of Avita’s COVID-positive patients are unvaccinated. Fifteen percent of them were on ventilators and 35 percent were in intensive care units.
At Avita, the average age for COVID patients in intensive care was 60, but ages ranged from 27 to 77. The average age for COVID patients in the medical/surgical unit was 65 with an age range of 39 to 90.
When looking at a seven-day average of patients hospitalized for COVID-19 at OhioHealth’s Mansfield and Shelby hospitals, as of Dec. 16,
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46 percent were over the age of 60
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84 percent were unvaccinated
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99 percent of patients under 60 were unvaccinated
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89 percent of ICU patients were unvaccinated
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24 percent were in critical care
Those numbers do not include “de-escalated” patients, who were originally counted as COVID-19 patients but are no longer in isolation, but still need hospitalization due to COVID-related complications.
It also does not include COVID-positive outpatients, such as those receiving monoclonal antibody infusions. These infusions can help keep COVID-19 patients out of the hospital, but Baumgardenr said availability has become a concern.
“Due to the high demand of the outpatient monoclonal antibody infusions, we are limited with the number of outpatient monoclonal antibody infusions that we can provide,” he said. “Criteria for this infusion has been changed to ensure those with the greatest health risk will be eligible.”
While treatments like monoclonal antibody infusions and a newly authorized oral antiviral are promising tools to fight the pandemic, health officials are still encouraging COVID vaccination and booster shots to reduce the risk of infection and severe illness.
“The overwhelming majority of hospitalized patients are unvaccinated,” Baumgardener said. “We have a proven way to push back against hospitalized patient volume in a vaccine and now a booster.
“That is where our teams really need our community to step up and help. Get vaccinated, get the booster, wear a mask. We need you more than ever.”
How are hospitals preparing?
Staffing shortages are persistent issue for hospitals across the country. Care providers have resigned due to burnout and opportunities for higher paying jobs in travel nursing. Others have simply retired.
Avita announced earlier this month that it had added beds and staffing to deal with an influx of COVID-19 patients.
“Staffing has been an issue throughout the entirety of the pandemic, but we have not had to close inpatient beds recently,” Adler said.
Both OhioHealth and Avita are utilizing travel nurses to supplement their workforce. Neither is currently requiring staff to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
“Healthcare systems and other non-healthcare businesses nationwide have been stretched during this pandemic,” Baumgardner said. “Our turnover percentage is well below the national average compared to other healthcare systems.”
Nevertheless, the arrival of another wave is difficult on health care providers.
“We were already caring for a number of seriously and critically ill patients before this latest COVID-19 surge,” Baumgardner said. “There was a very short reprieve between the surge in August/September and this surge. Because of that, our teams did not have a chance to decompress and build some resiliency.”
OhioHealth is already making changes to expand its capacity.
“Our three intensive care units are full with a range of conditions. We expanded the availability critical care by creating ICU-level rooms in an intermediate unit,” Baumgardner said.
“We are taking care of more patients now than at any point in the pandemic. We plan for worst case scenarios and for flexing and stretching of our resources.”
Some inpatient units will be converted from private to semi-private rooms. OhioHealth Shelby Hospital has begun admitting lower acuity COVID and non-COVID patients.
On Dec. 15, Mansfield Hospital began limiting surgeries and procedures to those that do not require an inpatient bed or overnight stay. As of this week, no additional electives were added to the schedule, unless they met a specific criteria.
At Shelby Hospital, we are limiting inpatient surgeries to those that would meet admission criteria to the women’s health unit. The Mansfield Surgery Center is continuing surgeries as scheduled.
Avita has not had to discontinue services.
“We look at the COVID numbers every day to determine if we can continue with inpatient elective surgeries and we adjust accordingly,” Adler said.
