COVID impact in local hospitals: “Waiting for a Jenga tower to fall”

PLAINS TWP. — Dr. Essie Reed seemed at times on the verge of tears as she talked about the patients she’d watched suffer and die, and the emotional strain on hospital staff dealing with an overload created by the current COVID-19 surge.

“We’re almost two years into this, and it feels like almost every day we’re going to a crisis at work, almost like waiting for a Jenga tower to fall,” she said during an online media briefing Wednesday about the heavy impact on health care facilities.

The emergency medicine physician at Geisinger Wyoming Valley told of ambulances waiting to bring patients into the emergency rooms, of patients being treated in waiting rooms and hallways, of emergency responses being delayed because ambulances couldn’t unload patients quickly enough.

She talked of a 28-year-old man who had COVID-19 six months ago who still has grim chest x-rays, is still on oxygen “and may never come off it.” She recounted a married couple that refused vaccines and refused treatments. “They both prematurely left their family members behind them. Young, vibrant people. “

Her life, she said, is almost like two parallel worlds: Work, where she and her colleagues struggle every day against the crush of patients, and outside work, where people think the pandemic is done.

“It isn’t,” Reed said. “It’s probably worse than last year.”

Reed had not been mentioned in an email sent out announcing the briefing, which was expected to be hosted by Geisinger President and Chief Executive Officer Jaewon Ryu. While Ryu spoke before and after her unscheduled on screen appearance, he acknowledge that Reed’s words were the more powerful presentation.

“It’s very sobering,” he said. He talked of how Geisinger keeps releasing numbers of cases, stressing that the surge is overwhelmingly among the unvaccinated, but added “Often times its the stories behind these numbers that make it real.”

Ryu noted the Geisinger system is seeing more COVID-19 cases this year compared to December of 2020. And he said the surge is made worse by an increase in other, non-COVID cases, including heart attacks, strokes and car accidents. Even seasonal flu and other respiratory diseases are higher than last year, “probably because there was less activity going on around the community and more masking. All those things made last year a little more manageable.”

And if you are thinking “as long as I can avoid COVID, I should be OK,” Ryu cautioned that may not hold true. Because so many hospitals are operating beyond capacity, every aspect of health care is slowed. People who need inpatient beds can’t get rooms because people in rooms can’t get Intensive Care Unit beds if they need them. People in emergency rooms can’t get into regular rooms, meaning ambulance crews are waiting longer to get their patient in the ER, which in turn means it can take longer for an ambulance to respond to another crisis. Even if an ambulance from another area responds instead, it comes from farther away, increasing time to treatment.

Ryu ran through data for Geisinger’s various hospitals, with nearly every one operating above capacity. The percentage of those patients hospitalized for COVID-19 ranged from 23% to 61%. At Geisinger Wyoming Valley, the hospital is operating at 120% of capacity, with 24% of cases COVID related.

Another impact: Hospitals are again scaling back non-emergent and elective procedures, as they did in last year’s surge. “it’s another way even non-COVID patients are being impacted, whether they need a hip or knee replacement, or even a heart valve repair.”

The best solution, both Reed and Ryu stressed, is to get fully vaccinated against COVID-19, and if its been more than six months since you were vaccinated, get the booster shot.

“It’s the single best arrow in the quiver in terms of stemming the tide in this pandemic,” Ryu said. “It’s effective in curbing COVID, but it also indirectly helps in those non-COVID cases by increasing capacity.”

“We want to make these stories come to an end,” Reed implored. “We want to support each other so we’re not crying in medical closet after watching patients die. This is why we’re asking for your help This is not something we normally do.

“Please, please, please, please: If you are not vaccinated, ask a trusted health care professional. Get the information you need.

“We need your help so you hopefully will not need ours.”