By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Chuck Welch with Hutchinson Regional Medical Center clarified on a call with Reno County stakeholders Tuesday that the intensive care unit has been stretched to its staffing limits in recent days.
"If you take our 18-bed capacity plus the four additional beds that are just off the ICU, we call that the queue, those are isolation rooms, we have a 22-bed capacity total," Welch said. "We have been full from a staffing capacity, meaning maybe not all twenty-two beds were full, but every bed that we could assign an ICU Critical Care nurse to was full."
Welch said it's not a shortage of beds that will be the problem, it is a shortage of staff. Obviously, not all ICU patients are COVID patients.
"We are doing everything we can to accept everyone we can," Welch said. "Bed space is second to staffing. As long as we can keep our team healthy and able to take care of patients, then we will continue to be able to accept patients, up to the point where we run out of beds, but I see staffing being the issue before bed capacity. I think Wesley and Via Christi would echo that sentiment."
The hospital had a total of 19 COVID patients overall as of 7 a.m. Tuesday. Three of those were intubated.