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OKLAHOMA CITY — Four of the state’s largest hospital systems said Tuesday they have no beds in their intensive care units, no inpatient beds available and their emergency departments were overflowing.
The problem: the Covid pandemic and the huge surge in the number of patients with the Omicron variant of the virus.
The announcement, made in the form of a joint letter on Monday and a morning press conference on Tuesday, came from the chief medical officers of Integris Health, Mercy, OU Health and SSMHealth St. Anthony’s.
In their letter, the medical officers said hospital systems in the Oklahoma City metro area had 300 fewer beds today than they did at the same time last year.
“We have the same number of Covid patients in the hospital,” the letter said. “And this number will continue to go up at least for the next few weeks. It’s a desperate battle and we need you to be aware and help.”
Along with the surge of those sick from the coronavirus, many people who do not require emergency care were going to emergency rooms for Covid testing, taxing an already limited staff.
Tuesday, Julie Watson, Integris’ chief medical officer, said the emergency departments in the hospital system had a total of 117 patients waiting for an open bed.
“Despite our best efforts, we may not be able to provide the care that we normally would,” she said.
Watson said health care workers were exhausted and can’t keep up the pace much longer.
“Between our four health systems, there are hundreds — and we estimate over 1,000 — health care workers in quarantine or who are unable to come to work due to kids out of school and no available childcare. We are experiencing staffing shortages. This has nearly crippled our already limited staff.”
Along with the increase in the number of adults infected with the virus, hospital officials said their facilities are seeing huge increases in the number of children who are testing positive for the Omicron variant of the coronavirus.
“What I can tell you is that what we’re seeing over the past two weeks is so different from a children’s perspective from what we’ve seen over the past two years,” said Cameron Mantor, acting chief medical officer for the OU Health system. “We are seeing many more kids test positive. In the past two weeks, 13% (of children) who come in for an operation are testing positive.”
Before Omicron, he said, only about one to two percent of children were testing positive for Covid.
“There is nothing wrong with parents telling their children to wear a mask when they go to school,” Mantor said.
Tuesday, the Tulsa World reported that a large number children in the Tulsa area were testing positive for Covid. Dr. John Lukeman, a Warren Clinic pediatrician, told the newspaper there was a “misconception that the latest virus had mutated to be less severe.”
“In my office last week, we had a day that our (COVID-19) positivity rate was 85%, and we had another day where it was 92%, so the number of patients that we’re seeing in our pediatric offices are drastically increased, and this is worrisome,” Lukeman said to the newspaper.
“So, from the beginning of Omicron, they were saying this was a more-transmissible variant,” he said. “But everyone was saying it was a mild variant, as well. Interestingly, that’s not necessarily what we’re seeing in pediatrics. We’re seeing an increase in hospitalizations; we’re seeing our patients under four years old have croup-like symptoms, requiring either steroids or breathing treatments to help them to breathe.”
Chad Smith, chief medical officer for Mercy Hospital said the Omicron variant had proved “particularly challenging” for emergency departments.
“We’ve seen a record number of patients in our ERs over the last few weeks; more than any other time during the pandemic,” he said. “Our waiting rooms stay full; there are often patients boarding in hallways or overflowing in triage areas. Some days we have patients on ventilators in the emergency department until we can find an open room in the ICU. This creates a bottle neck in all of our hospitals. Care is delayed many times because there is simply no place for people to go.”
In Oklahoma, records show approximately 839,000 residents have been infected with Covid-19, causing 11,741 deaths. The number of cases continues to rise with 48,143 cases reported as of Jan. 8 — an increase of 149% from the previous week.
So far, more than 2.1 million Oklahomans, aged 12 and up, have been fully vaccinated against the virus.
Dr. Kresey Winfree, the chief medical officer for SSM health St. Anthony, pushed back against the “colossal amount of misinformation on social media.” Oklahomans, he said, should get vaccinated, wear a mask, avoid large crowds and continue to practice social distancing.
“If you were standing in any one of our overflowing emergency rooms or ICUs, you would see the impact of this highly contagious virus on our health system is anything but mild,” he said. “Today’s covid hospitalization numbers are unpreceded. This is a preventable tragedy.”