An Illinois hospital is running out of available hospital beds and surgeries are being postponed as the coronavirus crisis continues amid a surge of cases in recent weeks.
In a statement, Morris Hospital and Health Care Centers reported a 400% increase in COVID-19 hospitalizations since the beginning of November. The hospital has 89 beds, however there are currently 79 patients being hospitalized with more than half of those patients listed as COVID-19 positive. The hospital’s ICU Beds and intermediate care beds were reported full on Wednesday.
“The hospital is overwhelmed. We are running low on beds,” said Diane Baker, a nurse at Morris Hospital. “We are holding patients in the emergency department for days waiting for inpatient beds.”
Morris Hospital is located in Grundy County, where the coronavirus positivity rate is 24%.
“We’re seeing a lot of family members coming in saying ‘my family member is sick and has COVID-19, I don’t have any symptoms but I probably have it,’” Baker explained.
On Wednesday, Mark Steadham, the President and CEO of Morris Hospital and Healthcare Centers issued a dire warning on the state of the hospital and has continued to ask the community for their help in slowing the spread.
“Over the last five weeks it seems like we have seen a doubling in the number of patients that we see at the hospital,” Steadham said. “This isn’t about the politics. It is about community and really our community is the one that can help make a change for us. The hospital can’t do anything.”
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In a response to the crisis, Morris Hospital postponed three surgeries that were scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday that would have involved an overnight stay, according to a statement.
