COVID-19 Update: Rural Hospitals Overwhelmed
Rural Hospitals Overwhelmed 111920
It's reported that nearly 77,000 people are now hospitalized nationwide with coronavirus, marking the highest number since the start of the pandemic, and rural America is right in the middle of it.
CNN’s Miguel Marquez reports from an Iowa hospital now dealing with COVID-19, where retired farmer Butch Hansen, 84 years old, was diagnosed last week. Regional Health Services of Howard County in Cresco, Iowa, is a 19-bed facility that serves as the hospital, ambulance service, Public Health Department and hospice care for the entire county. They usually move most of their sickest patients to larger hospitals but are now having trouble finding beds to move them to.
“The biggest concern in the last week is when we call and ask for them to help to take care of our patients who are maybe sicker than we're used to taking care of, they don't have beds for us and so that's where the strain really comes on,” says Dr. John Kammerer, a family medical physician.
Over the last month hospitalizations across Iowa have skyrocketed from under 500 COVID-19 patients hospitalized in mid-October to nearly 1,400 Iowans hospitalized with COVID-19. Now people like Brady Norman, director, Ambulance Services and Emergency Preparedness, are concerned about where to send critically ill patients if there is a surge. With the holidays around the corner, the fear is that it’s going to get worse.
Watch the full story here.
