The president of the Kentucky Hospital Association says the last two weeks have found many hospitals across the Commonwealth quickly filling up. Nancy Galvagni said healthcare facilities report bed availability on a daily basis, as required by federal law. She noted caregivers are seeing sicker patients in hospitals and they are not all suffering from COVID.
“And we attribute that to the fact that when things were shut down earlier many people did not seek treatment. And so, now the patients coming into the hospitals have a higher acuity level. We’re starting to see more trauma patients. And so, when you add COVID on top of that, that is really creating a strain on our staff,” said Galvagni.
Galvagni said the current level of patients, primarily attributed to the Delta variant, is not to the previous peak level several months ago. But the KHA executive added the rise in patient numbers is much faster.
Galvagni said some Kentucky hospitals are creating extra surge capacity, especially around intensive care patients.
Baptist Health Richmond announced Monday updated hospital visitor guidelines. Those include no overnight visitation and no one under the age of 16 is permitted to visit. And no visitors are allowed for in-patient COVID-19 cases at the Richmond hospital.
