Alaska’s COVID-19 case rate is among the highest in the country and hospitals around the state are struggling to keep up with the strain of inpatients. Some hospitals have had to ration treatments due to the surge of COVID-19 cases in addition to not enough staff.
Bruce Richards, External Affairs Director for Central Peninsula Hospital told KSRM (on Wednesday) that elective surgeries are on hold:
“We did cancel yesterday due to our patient census. The amount of patients that we had in the hospital, we decided to cancel elective surgeries yesterday and today for elective surgeries that would require an impatient stay. We’re continuing to do surgeries where you come in, have your surgery and go home, but if you had a surgery that was elective and required an admission to the hospital, those were canceled yesterday and today.”
He said those decisions are made on a daily basis.
Like the rest of Alaska, COVID numbers are surging at Central Peninsula Hospital:
“Yeah, we’ve definitely seen a large increase in the number of COVID patients that are coming to the hospital through the emergency room and needing to be admitted for care. So, the day before yesterday (Monday) we had six admissions within the 24-hour period, which is a significantly high number. That caused us to have to do some shifting around within the facility here and open the overflow unit and also hold some patients in the emergency room overnight.”
A majority of the COVID patients that are hospitalized are unvaccinated, according to CPH data:
“Yeah, the overwhelming majority of people in the hospital for COVID are unvaccinated. So, it’s running anywhere from 80% unvaccinated up to in the 90s, but I haven’t seen it go below 80%. Yeah, obviously getting vaccinated will suit people better for staying out of the hospital.”
Meanwhile, visitation was limited for Central Peninsula Hospital in July due to the community spread of COVID-19. For more information, click here.
