Stanislaus County hospitals are ‘stretched thin’ by COVID-19 patients, leader says
Stanislaus County’s top elected official reversed a statement about local hospital capacity and now says those hospitals are stretched thin in caring for patients stricken by COVID-19 illness.
Kristin Olsen, chairwoman of the county Board of Supervisors, also tweeted Thursday that wearing a face covering and social distancing is more important than ever “given the extent of community spread, the rapidly rising hospital numbers, and the fact that our hospitals are already stretched thin.”
The new development began to reveal growing concerns about the ability of the five hospitals in Stanislaus County to care for patients with serious or life-threatening cases of COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Olsen said Thursday in a statement to The Modesto Bee that local hospitals are at or near capacity in intensive care units, which care for critically ill patients. She retracted a statement she made Wednesday that was critical of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s new order closing certain businesses in counties hit by a wave of coronavirus infections.
On Wednesday, Olsen was critical of Newsom’s order that once again closed restaurants, bars and other establishments in Stanislaus and 18 other counties. She said: “The state’s extreme action today seems premature because we have more than enough capacity in our hospitals to accommodate patients.”
The former state assemblywoman and Republican leader in the Legislature soon caught flak for the comment on social media. County leaders said they started to hear Thursday of the pandemic’s impact on local hospitals, which is becoming more of a concern.
Olsen’s retraction Thursday said her understanding of hospital capacity was based on an online data dashboard that’s updated daily with numbers on coronavirus cases and hospitalizations. She said Thursday that she and other county officials have since learned the dashboard numbers on hospital ICU capacity are misleading.
“We are working to modify our COVID-19 dashboard to more accurately reflect capacity in our hospitals,” her statement said.
Executives at Memorial Medical Center and Doctors Medical Center also were expected to start helping the county with messaging about the recent impact on hospitals and the urgent need to slow the spread of the virus.
Jody Hayes, county chief executive officer, said he had conversations with the hospitals Thursday that clarified the issue of capacity for COVID-19 patients in ICUs.
The county’s dashboard said this week two-thirds of ICU beds were in use for coronavirus patients and other people seriously ill or injured. Going strictly by a physical bed count, it suggests that one third, or about 60 beds, are still available for a continued patient surge.
But a hospital’s ICU capacity is more determined by the ability to provide qualified nurses and support staff for those patients. There was no current estimate on how many additional patients could be placed and supported in ICU beds in Stanislaus County.
“There is concern if these trends do not reverse in the next two weeks, from the staffing perspective they are going to be stretched too thin,” Hayes said.
In addition, the level of coronavirus disease in neighboring counties may prevent other hospitals from assisting Stanislaus with the patient increase, Hayes said.
Sacramento-based Sutter Health, which oversees Memorial of Modesto, did not acknowledge an anticipated shortage of ICU beds in a corporate statement Thursday. “Memorial Medical Center will rely on the resources available via Sutter’s network if COVID-19 case numbers continue to increase across Stanislaus County.”
Doctors Medical Center said its intensive care units are typically full because of the hospital’s role as a referral center for higher-level care. As services were reduced due to the coronavirus outbreak, the center had deep declines in hospitalized patients in March, April and May, a spokesperson said.
“For June, our census has returned to a more normal level. We do have a higher number of COVID patients than we did in the spring because of our higher level of care, but we are managing our capacity,” the spokesperson said.
Hayes noted that Imperial County in the southern of the state is sending overflow COVID patients to other regions, some of them to Northern California.
“We have some capacity to manage our situation in the immediate future,” Hayes said. “But the trend line is not sustainable, particularly if the broader region is not able to support us.”
According to an update Thursday, the county had 81 new cases of coronavirus confirmed by testing, continuing a run of 70 to 80 new infections per day. Hospitals were caring for 121 patients with confirmed COVID-19 illness, with 38 in intensive care units. A total of 182 hospitalized patients were suspected or confirmed to have COVID-19, the dashboard said.
As of Thursday afternoon, Stanislaus County has reported 2,391 positive cases of COVID-19. Another 29,783 tests have come back negative.
In her statement Thursday, Olsen also said optimistically: “All (hospitals) are in the process of staffing up and working collaboratively with our county (emergency operations center) to ensure that collectively, we can accommodate patients in need of hospitalization.”
This story was originally published July 2, 2020 at 5:36 PM.
