By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Chuck Welch with Hutchinson Regional Medical Center told Hutch Post that the situation regarding both staffing and beds has improved since he spoke to the County Commission on Tuesday.
"Whether we can accept patients or not has completely to do with staffing and current acuity of the patients that we have in house," Welch said. "It is not as simple as how many patients do we have versus how many nurses. It has a lot of factors involved in it, including acuity, or how sick they are."
Welch said the situation Tuesday with full diversion, where the hospital couldn't take any patients has been rare, even in recent weeks.
"We're actually off diversion and fully accepting patients now," Welch said. "Staffing has improved. We've got several new hires through orientation and they're up and going. We've had discharges from the hospital. Some beds have opened up and the emergency department is not overrun at this point."
Welch said they've been using both travelers and local hires to fill needs.
"Some of both, but mostly local hires," Welch said. "We'll get a crop of new hires across all different kinds of disciplines and then they have to go through an orientation and a calibration process with our system. That can take a few weeks. This time, we just happened to have a handful of nurses and we've gotten them through that process. They're out working, which has relieved the problem somewhat."
Nursing shortages across the nation have caused hospitals to divert patients, particularly those needing critical care, in recent weeks.
The hospital census (number of patients) as of Friday morning was 48. Ten of those are COVID positive. One COVID positive person is in ICU as of Friday morning.