A depressing picture was painted on the current status of Central Peninsula Hospital citing major issues due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Central Peninsula Hospital CEO Rick Davis spoke to the Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly at their December 1 meeting to give a quarterly report on the hospital.
The hospital has gone over capacity multiple days. The hospital is licensed for 49 beds with the highest day being 63 inpatients. According to Davis, “We’re really watching our capacity. We’ve got concerns about the follow-up after Thanksgiving. We’re expecting a little surge over the next week or ten days.”
Heritage Place, the long-term care facility, has had 27 patients come down positive with COVID-19, that’s over half of the residents there with one passing away. 10 of those have recovered.
Davis said that there is little sign of positive cases letting up following Thanksgiving, saying that the real danger for CPH is not having staff to care for patients, “Our real problem is staff. We, at one point, had 87 staff out on quarantine, either positive with COVID or known exposure. Most of these are outside of work. These 87 staff members had to be backfilled with someone else, usually on overtime. These COVID patients are staying in the hospital longer than a normal length of stay for our average length of stay. They burn up a lot of Personal Protective Equipment. We’re going through that like wildfire.
Davis is concerned about the rest of those who use the hospital who aren’t COVID positive, “When we are full, that puts us at a disadvantage at caring for stroke patients, heart attack, trauma, etc. We really hope that the surge doesn’t continue to get worse so we can continue to keep our doors open and take care of our community.
Increasing COVID-19 cases have forced CPH to close four departments in order to reassign staff forcing staff to take additional shifts in order to cover. Davis says that if the situation worsens, the hospital could be overrun. “We’ve closed four departments and reassigned staff to work up on the floor while other employees are out on quarantine. Cardiac rehab is closed. Our sleep lab is closed. Our Diamond Willow detox unit is closed and pulmonary rehab is closed. Those patients are not getting service at this time.”
The hospital expanded to the old obstetric unit with nine beds being units being used. Featured surge areas include the sleep lab, endoscopy department and pre-op areas are available to use if the hospital starts to continually go over capacity.
Below is the slideshow used in the Davis’s CPH Quarterly Report.
LAYDOWN Quarterly Report (1)