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Like other largely rural states bearing the brunt of the brutal SARS-CoV-2 holiday spike, Oklahoma hospitals are scrambling to care for patients amid overcrowding, understaffing, and bed shortages. The state estimates that at present there are at least 1,000 Covid-19 in Oklahoma hospitals, and the health care system is at risk of splitting along its seams.

“And that’s the way it is in Oklahoma…”

According to Tulsa World , “Some hospitals are putting patients in hallways, renovating conference rooms into ERs, converting entire wings into COVID units, limiting nonemergency procedures and surgeries, and admitting only the “sickest of the sick” COVID patients.” The new year is having a harsh beginning. Last Wednesday, at a weekly Project ECHO meeting at Oklahoma State University, Dr. Jennifer Clark, who leads COVID-19 data sessions, said, “January is already stacking up to be a pretty significant month. My guess is we’ll probably see doubling of most of our numbers” She noted, “It’s no big secret that our nursing shortage existing prior to the pandemic is now kind of crippling us to some extent. We don’t have the staff to take care of between 1,000 and 2,000 extra hospitalizations.”

On average, 26 Oklahomans are dying of Covid-related complications each day, making it the third leading cause of death in the state, after heart disease and cancer. Clark remarked, “So you can see that our hospitals are not only full based on regular hospital folks who get sick in the wintertime, but now we have COVID on top of it. It’s almost overtaking our ability to take care of folks.” Clinicians in a range of specialties are being called upon to pitch in. Pediatricians, for example, are helping in adult hospitals, outpatient primary care providers are working shifts at their area hospitals, and doctors at rural health facilities are cramming to learn unfamiliar treatment techniques so they can treat incoming Covid patients.

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“Our Covid patients are some of the sickest I’ve seen”

At a virtual news conference, ICU nurse Amy Petitt (who works at SSM Health St. Anthony Hospital in Oklahoma City) said that exhausted nurses are working 50-60 hour weeks. She said of current conditions: “We’re seeing more patients — more critically sick patients. Our COVID patients are some of the sickest we’ve seen. When they come to us in the ICU, a lot of them require intubation, lines, they have to be turned on their bellies, they require being paralyzed pharmacologically, sedation, blood pressure medication, dialysis…” Petitt added, “Everybody has stepped up, taking higher acuity patients and higher patient loads. [But] it’s not sustainable in the long run, and we need the community’s help.”

During the Covid surge, Oklahoma health officials are urging people with other serious illnesses to stay in touch with their HCPs via telemedicine visits and to contact community services for home health care or palliative care services.

For more on Oklahoma’s battle with Covid, see the coverage in Tulsa World.

Koren Thomas
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