PITTSBURGH (TNS) — The Pennsylvania National Guard is joining federal COVID-19 response team members in Lackawanna and York counties to help ease hospital overcrowding.
Some 110 state guard medical providers, medics and support personnel were being dispatched to WellSpan York Hospital and the Commonwealth Health Regional Hospital of Scranton, where 30 beds were to be added between the hospitals to ease overcrowding due to COVID-19.
Nonprofit WellSpan York said Wednesday that it’s caring for more COVID-19 patients than ever before. In Pennsylvania on Wednesday, 28,018 new cases were reported, the highest single day count in more than a year.
The Scranton and WellSpan hospitals are in eastern and southeastern Pennsylvania, about 150 miles apart.
Guard medical teams will help with non-acute care of patients, including such things as checking vital signs, while support personnel will help deliver meals and with housekeeping duties.
Brig. Gen. James McCormack of the Pennsylvania National Guard is overseeing active duty Air Force medical response teams in the two cities. Gov. Tom Wolfsought the help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The Pennsylvania National Guard has conducted about 140 staffing support missions and provided some form of assistance to more than 130 long term care facilities since April 2020.
Pennsylvania guard members will be helping the U.S. Department of Defense emergency “strike teams” that were dispatched in the past week to Scranton and York, which included 10 ambulances and two EMS teams, one for each city. At the 537-bed WellSpan York Hospital, 23 Air Force doctors, nurses, respiratory technicians and others are working alongside medical staff.
The 186-bed Scranton hospital is a for-profit facility owned by Community Health Systems Inc. The hospital is among 83 hospitals in 16 states that are owned or operated by the Franklin, Tenn.-based company.
Hospitals throughout Pennsylvania have reported being at or near capacity in recent weeks due to a surge in COVID-19 cases, including many in the Pittsburgh area. The latest surge has been blamed on the omicron variant, which is more contagious than previous strains, but can cause less severe infections.
Other areas of the country are also being hard hit by the virus. In Maryland, Gov. Larry Hogan declared a 30-day emergency on Tuesday after a record number of COVID-19 cases were reported in the state and in New York City, the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 hit 4,500 on Tuesday, exceeding last winter’s peak.
