12/17/2022 0 Comments Best er in portland![]() But a bigger issue is a limited number of nurses and other workers to staff the beds. Michaud said hospitals can convert non-ICU beds to intensive care beds. The state CDC said Maine hospitals had about 55 available ICU beds as of Thursday, including those for adults and for youth. One specific area of concern is the capacity of the state’s intensive care units, where the most severely ill patients are cared for. Rural hospitals pitched in, such as Franklin Memorial Hospital in Farmington with six COVID-19 patients, Stephens Memorial Hospital in Norway caring for eight COVID-19 patients and Waldo County General Hospital in Belfast with five patients. On Friday, the MaineHealth system was caring for 88 COVID-19 patients, including 29 at Maine Med. “With these high numbers of COVID patients, it allows us to make better use of our beds throughout the system,” Porter said. John Porter, a spokesman for MaineHealth, a health network that includes Maine Med and seven other Maine hospitals, said rural hospitals in the MaineHealth system now being able to care for COVID-19 patients means their capacity to care for pandemic patients has increased. So, for instance, hospitals in Machias, Millinocket, Farmington, Calais and other rural hospitals are now permitted to care for COVID-19 patients, although severe cases are always transferred to major hospitals such as Maine Medical Center in Portland and Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor. The Mills administration recently eased some regulatory rules that now permit smaller, rural hospitals to care for COVID-19 patients. “Clearly, we are going to have to manage elective procedures even more than we do right now,” Michaud said. Michaud said most hospitals in Maine can do more to delay additional surgeries if needed. For instance, regarding delaying elective surgeries, such as hip and knee replacements, hospitals can “tap the brakes” by delaying some surgeries or “push hard on the brakes” and delay most elective surgeries. Michaud said there’s still more give in the system, because hospitals can increase usage of the tools. The Mills administration has encouraged rural hospitals to support the regional medical centers and has begun encouraging volunteers or temporary health care workers to help with the pandemic. The temporary workers could work in other areas of health care, such as vaccine clinics, to free up the permanent employees to care for COVID-19 patients. That’s because hospitals are using some of their tools to increase capacity, such as delaying elective surgeries, using rural hospitals to care for COVID-19 patients and bringing in temporary workers, such as recent retirees, to volunteer or for paid work. ![]() “We think we are getting close to having a major problem,” Michaud said, although it’s impossible to say exactly when capacity could be reached. Related CDC director warns about ICU capacity as Maine coronavirus hospitalizations continue climb
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |