Hospitals filled
Wheeling Hospital has opened a second pandemic unit due to the increased cases, something we didn’t have to do last year. He personally has admitted more COVID patients in the last 2 weeks than he has in the past 6 months. It never truly went away, but the Delta variant is starting to run rampant after a lull this spring. he estimates 1/3 of the COVID patients he sees now are fully vaccinated but those patients are rarely deathly ill but still vectors to spread the virus. The willfully unvaccinated are suffering and it will most definitely get worse.
School boards have been burdened with deciding how to handle a pandemic due to the inactions of the state legistlures. Th US it seems wants to shift blame to local non-medical authorities to avoid blame when the lcok-downs begin again. School board listen to the most vocal resident who are usually ill-informed and politically motivated, but are voters. Elementary schools are filling up with students who will spread the virus throughout the community and, in some cases, pay a horrible price themselves.
Nurses are leaving the ERs, ICUS and floors in droves. We now have a shortage of staffed beds and even the tertiary care centers (WVU, UPMC ANH), have warned us anynoe needing transferred will be waiting 24-72 hours for a bed. That is now, before the main surge actually happens.
Any child on a ventilator cannot be cared for in the Vally, they will most likely sit in ERs here for days.
Last week, Ga and Teas hospitals wree calling Wheeling to see if they had avaialble beds to transfer their adult patients.
I just got off of a shift where I admitted 3 unvaccinated patients all needing oxygen and one on a ventilator most likely to die in the next few days. Let alone the others that got sent home as there is not cure and they were not sick enough.
Ask any ER, Hospitalist, or ICU physician in the Valley what they have been going through. You will get the same answer – we are getting crushed and this is only the beginning. I fear (and expect) a collapse of the system when all of the schools resume without a definitive plan other than “wear a mask if you feel like it.” We are already seeing it happen in other states.
I truly feel you can help by shining some light on what is happening in the Valley as opposed to national news that gives us a false sense of security in that they do not mention us.
This is at the end of a shift filled with preventable tragedy.