US hospitals rush to find beds for surge of Coronavirus patients

With her due date fast approaching, Kelly McCarty packed a bag with nursing tops, a robe, slippers and grala bars. Last week’s ultrasound, she said, showed “this baby is head down and ready to go.”

But new coronavirus has thrown her a curveball, bouncing her and about 140 or expectant moms from ir first-choice hospital to ar 30 minutes away. birth unit at Edmonds, Washington, hospital is needed for COVID-19.

With capacity stretched thin, U.S. hospitals are rushing to find beds for a coming flood of patients, opening older closed hospitals, turning single rooms into doubles and re-purposing or medical buildings.

Louisiana is making deals with hotels to provide additional hospital beds and has converted three state parks into isolation sites for patients who can’t go home. Illiis is reopening a 314-bed suburban Chicago hospital that closed in September.

In New York, city’s convention center is being turned into a temporary hospital. At Mount Sinai Morningside hospital, heart surgeons, cardiologists and cardiovascular nurses w care for coronavirus patients in a converted cardiac unit. Floating hospitals from U.S. Navy are heading to Los Angeles and, eventually, New York. Military mobile hospitals are promised to Washington state.

Simple math is spurring hospital leaders to prepare. With total U.S. cases doubling every three days, empty intensive care unit beds, needed by an estimated 5% of sick, will rapidly fill.

U.S. hospitals reported operating 74,000 ICU beds in 2018, with 64% filled by patients on a typical day. But available ICU beds are t evenly distributed, according to an Associated Press analysis of federal data on hospitals that provided a cost report to Medicare in fiscal year 2018.

AP found more than 7 million people 60 and older — those most at risk of severe COVID-19 illness — live in counties without ICU beds. AP included ICU beds in coronary units, surgical units and burn units in count.

“Better to be over-prepared than react in moment,” said Melissa Short, who directs women’s health for Seattle’s Swedish Medical Center, which is using data from China and Italy as it attempts to double its capacity to 2,000 beds.

In South Korea, some died at home waiting for a hospital bed. In rrn Italy, an explosion of cases swamped hospital system. Video and photos from two Spanish hospitals showed patients, many hooked to oxygen tanks, crowding corridors and emergency rooms.

About 10 days ago, Dr. Tanya Sorensen got a call from doctor leading response to virus at Washington state’s Swedish Medical Center. How could system consolidate its birth services to keep healthy delivering moms away from sick?

“It took me aback,” said Sorensen, medical director for hospital system’s women’s services. “It brought home fact that we are going to be facing a huge surge of cases of COVID very soon.”

Swedish’s Edmonds facility — where McCarty had planned to deliver — anunced Saturday it is closing its 7th floor birth center temporarily, gaining 35 beds for expected influx. McCarty will go instead to an affiliated hospital in Everett.

“y need more beds. If y can open up a whole floor, I understand,” said McCarty, a public school teacher who is busy coaching colleagues about online learning during state’s lockdown.

For most people, coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia, and death.

If or countries have same experience as China, 15% to 20% of COVID-19 patients will have severe illness. About 5% could become sick eugh to require intensive care.

Equipment is a challenge. About 20% of U.S. hospitals said y didn’t have eugh breathing machines for patients and 97% were reusing or orwise conserving N95 masks, according to a survey conducted last week by hospital group purchasing organization Premier.

Who will staff needed ICU beds is keeping U.S. hospital leaders awake at night.

In western Massachusetts, Nancy Shendell-Falik, a nurse turned hospital executive, is planning Baystate Health’s response. system’s community hospitals and flagship hospital in Springfield are finding for 500 additional beds, including 140 ICU beds.

She asks herself: Will cross-training staff and working in teams help ICU nurses handle a surge of patients needing breathing machines? Will re be eugh masks, gowns and face shields? She also worries about exhaustion, burut and nurses falling sick.

“Beds don’t take care of patients. We need staff to do so,” she said.

During 9/11, she worked as a chief nurse at a hospital eight miles from twin towers. She also worked at a Boston hospital that took in casualties of 2013 marathon bombing.

“Those things changed our world forever, but y were very time-limited activities. What’s scary about this,” she said, is “we don’t kw duration.”

This weekend, McCarty and her husband plan to drive to Everett hospital, a trial run for when she goes into labor. When her contractions start, y’ll call her dad to come stay with ir 4-year-old daughter. McCarty is taking it in stride, kwing depth of need.

“If it was my first child, I think it would be a little harder,” McCarty said of adjusting her birth plan for COVID-19. “I kw what it’s like and I’ve been through it before. Where I deliver isn’t necessarily that big of a deal. I’m happy to oblige.”