HARRISBURG (TNS) — Geisinger hospitals throughout north-central Pennsylvania are operating at well over 100% percent of their capacities, with unvaccinated COVID-19 patients responsible for most of the strain.
Moreover, an accelerating surge of COVID-19 patients is contributing to 10-20 hour emergency room waits and delays in unloading ambulances, and interfering with care for people with non-COVID-19 needs such as heart valve surgery, Geisinger doctors said on Wednesday.
The strain on staff is worsened by the fact that most of the COVID-19 suffering and death involves unvaccinated patients and is therefore preventable, said Dr. Essie Reed, an emergency room doctor at Wyoming Valley Medical Center in Wilkes-Barre.
Reed described a 28-year-old man stricken with COVID-19 six months ago who has severe lung damage, saying “he’s still on oxygen and may never be able to come off.”
She also described a young married couple who she said refused COVID-19 vaccine and proven hospital treatments and who both died.
Reed pleaded with individuals to help by getting vaccinated against COVID-19.
“We want to make these stories come to an end. We want to do our best to support each other so that we’re not taking turns crying in the med closet over unnecessarily watching patients die,” she said.
Geisinger doctors painted a dire picture, saying local infections and hospitalizations are two weeks ahead of the pace of the surge that severely strained hospitals last winter.
Dr. Jaewon Ryu, Geisinger’s president and CEO, said all of Geisinger’s hospitals are operating at more than 100% capacity, meaning every bed is in use and patients in need of beds “are sitting in locations and places that were not meant to be long-term beds.”
Reed said tests and intensive treatments are being done in the ER at a level “I never imagined I would see in my career.”
Geisinger, with its main medical center in Danville in Montour County, has hospitals in locations including Jersey Shore, Shamokin, Bloomsburg and Lewistown.
Ryu said non-COVID-19 medical cases, which fell off last year because of factors such as lockdowns, have greatly increased in volume.
However, he said COVID-19 cases comprise a large and accelerating portion of cases.
For example, he said Jersey Shore is operating at 130% of capacity, with 61% of the patients having COVID-19. On a recent day, all but one patient admitted to Jersey Shore had COVID-19, he said.
Shamokin and Bloomsburg are at 115% of capacity, with 42% and 38% of patients having COVID-19, he said.
Ryu said that even with surging cases and hospitalizations, the data continues to prove the benefit of COVID-19 vaccine, with about 90% of Geisinger’s COVID-19 patients being unvaccinated.
“I think what the vaccine is really effective at is preventing hospitalization and death,” he said. “Are there breakthrough infections? Absolutely. But when you avoid and prevent hospitalization and death, it preserves beds, it preserves ICU capacity, it preserves ventilators, it preserves staffs … It allows us to continue to take care of non-COVID issues as well,” he said.
Even among the vaccinated patients, Ryu said, most were vaccinated more than six months ago and have other serious medical conditions.
Reed said it seems like much of the community isn’t aware of what’s happening in the hospitals, comparing it to “two parallel worlds,” with “an outside world where society sort of feels like all this pandemic is behind us and we’re going on with our daily lives.”
