Keely Connolly thought she would be safe once the ambulance arrived at Hutchinson Regional Medical Center in Kansas.
She had difficulty breathing because she had to miss renal dialysis treatment a few days earlier for lack of child care. Her potassium was dangerously high, putting her at risk of a heart attack. But she was confident she would be fine when she was admitted and when dialysis began.
She was shocked when a nurse told her there were no beds available and she had to be moved – perhaps more than 450 miles to Denver. She had heard rumors of a dialysis patient who died waiting for a hospital bed in Wichita, about an hour down the road.
“‘I don’t want to die in the ER,'” Connolly, 32, recalled thinking. “I just wanted them to settle me, but then the woman came in and said, ‘No beds there. ‘ I was really scared and didn’t know if they had time to get to me anywhere else. “
When her last bed was located 65 miles away in Salina, Connolly, who has kidney failure, was relieved but worried: How far would she be away? Who would care for a young girl? How would she get home? How much would it cost?
Connolly was caught in a situation that experts have warned of the onset of the coronavirus pandemic: Covid-19 patients are recovering in hospitals, pushing space and staff needing to handling an emergency like Connolly.
Although it has happened in pockets across the country since the spring, the pressure on hospitals is now widespread – reaching urban and rural communities at an alarming rate, even as local officials and citizens continue to hit public health sectors and pandemic guidelines. It is difficult to come by mobile nurses as their services are in high demand across the country and pay has gone up beyond some smaller hospitals.
“This is the first time since I have been here that we have had a situation where a number of hospitals, for longer periods, are experiencing some sort of shortage,” said Cindy Samuelson, senior vice president. President of the Kansas Hospital Association.
And it got worse after the Connolly crisis in mid-November. The average 14-day positive confirmation rate in Reno County, where Hutchinson is the county seat, reached 46% on Dec. 22, though it has dropped to 24% since Jan. 4, said DJ Gering, a data analyst for Reno County Department of Health. The results did not include prisoners from Hutchinson Correctional Center, the local state prison.
By October 1, four covid deaths had been recorded in the county of about 62,000. By January 4, the death toll from the outbreak had spread to 105. For comparison, Gering said, Reno County had 19 deaths due to pneumonia and influenza combined in 2019 as a whole.
Hospitals at Hutchinson Regional Medical Center increased 190-beds by 800% from mid-October to mid-December and then began to temper at the end of the month, said Chuck Welch, vice president of Hutchinson Regional Medical System.
“I hate to be overly optimistic until we are well past the potential holiday surge from Christmas and New Year,” he said in an email.
Operating between 90% and 95% capacity, the hospital cares for patients with multiple needs and still has room for expansion. The problem, Welch said, has been staffing.
It has been challenging to compete for mobile nurses and specialists against larger hospitals to refill positions that are open from sick or quarantined workers. When larger numbers of covid patients have been seeking emergency hospital care, it has become much more difficult to treat a “normal” emergency like Connolly, Welch said.
As staff work to move patients as close to home as possible, with so many hospitals in Kansas beyond capacity, it has become more common than ever to move as far away as Colorado and Nebraska. Movements like this require medical flights, which are not usually covered by insurance and can cost patients up to $ 50,000, Welch said.
“It’s collateral damage,” he said. “It’s something that was lost from the narrative of these people where everyone is relieved when we find a bed for them. Everyone forgets about the impact down with it. the cost of those transportation. “
Connolly recovered after three days in Salina hospital. But the question remains rich about the costs for her emergency care. Connolly had left his post as correctional officer at the prison in September because coronavirus cases began to spin inward. Without her employer-backed health insurance, Connolly is now dependent on Medicaid and Medicare Part A, which means she is dependent on increased out-of-pocket expenses for things like medicines and services. ambulance.
Connolly is so worried about her finances that she’s too scared to look at her recent ambulance bills. Her main concerns are being a single parent, living with kidney failure and receiving dialysis during a pandemic.
Like many basic conditions, covid-19 appears to be an additional risk for people with renal failure and patients receiving dialysis, said Dr. Alan Kliger, a nephrologist at Yale University and co-chair of COVID Response- 19 American Nephrology Association Team.
Data from New York and Europe early in the pandemic showed that about 1 in 5 dialysis patients who received covid died, he said. However, complexity and mortality rates have fallen in recent months, according to unpublished study data from members of the nephrology association, Kliger said.
“It’s still a high risk,” he said.
For Connolly, the pandemic has also complicated the 3½ once-a-week dialysis schedule. For example, when a kindergarten class was told her daughter was quarantined for 14 days after appearing in class for the virus, she had to find a scramble for protectors so she could go for dialysis.
“I don’t want too many people to watch her because of covid,” Connolly said of her daughter, adding that she is fortunate that the girl ‘s father is supportive. But he can’t always step in, which means if Connolly can’t find a seat, she may have to scrape or reorganize dialysis.
Connolly wants another job. But living in a county where so many refuse to wear masks and some elected leaders accuse the health department of giving false information about statistical and statistical test rates is intimidating. has to be in public more than is necessary.
“I want to work,” she said. “I had a good job. I was serving my community. The truth of experiencing how bad it is in the hospital – I’ve just seen it. And now I’m out and about. ‘see people without a mask and I think,’ If I get this and have to go back, I may not leave the hospital next time. ‘”
The truth is, Kliger, Welch and others said that even if the virus runs suddenly, hospitals will find it difficult to maintain, which could put medical staff at risk and anyone who needs hospital care – and the virus will continue to spread as long as people refuse to hide and avoid scientifically sound guidelines.
Connolly said she would like to see more sympathy for people with underlying health concerns like her from those who oppose safety measures such as masks.
“Even if they think it won’t work, what if it works? What if it could? I don’t really understand how wearing a mask is going to bring out so much from your day, as opposed to someone who is vaccinated and becomes ill, “Connolly said. “Or if you lose your grandmother, or your parent. That’s going to affect your life a lot longer than wearing a mask for a while.”
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