1 Rural Indiana Hospital; 25 Beds, 5 ICU Slots, 45 Minutes From Nearest City And Nearly Full

[hatrack]

Dr. Desmond Wah is used to being the only physician tending to patients during his shifts at Margaret Mary Community Hospital in Batesville, Ind., population 6,500, where at least half of the 25 beds are usually empty. But he was hardly prepared for the weeklong shift he started on March 20, when the two counties Batesville straddles became one of rural America’s worst coronavirus hot spots.

By the end of the week, most of the hospital’s beds were filled with patients who had either tested positive for or were suspected of having the virus. Six were on ventilators, two of which had been lent hastily by a local emergency medical services unit.

With limited staff, equipment and medicine, Dr. Wah and a handful of nurses and respiratory therapists had to scramble. They had only five intensive care beds, and no experience with caring for multiple patients on ventilators at once. They ran out of propofol, the drug they normally use to anesthetize patients and had to urgently consult with an anesthesia team at a big Cincinnati hospital about alternatives. "We were trying to manage them on a ventilator with limited support, burning through our sedation protocols, having to use sedatives we never typically use,” Dr. Wah said. “We were just cobbling stuff together.”

Margaret Mary’s experience is a preview of what may be in store for more than 2,000 other small rural hospitals around the country, for which the pandemic poses a frightening set of challenges. “We were inventing by the seat of our pants,” Dr. Wah said. “At the big hospitals in Indianapolis, a patient gets admitted and you consult all the specialists you need. If they need the I.C.U., you hand them off to an intensivist. Rural medicine is a different kind of beast.”

EDIT

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/16/health/coronavirus-rural-hospitals.html

[greenjar_01]

1. The rural areas will suffer terribly...many people will die in ambulances on long drives to cities

As the man says in the musical, "We're gonna fly a lot flags half mast."

[roamer65]

2. There may not be beds in the urban areas for them.

[Newest Reality]

3. Those Republican...

Those Republican Governors who are acting so nonchalant about restrictions and itchy to "re-open" are in for what I call, "The Second Wave". From what I see, that is just getting started.

It is hard to tell just how bad it will be, but there are indicators that may make the mortality rate high as well as the number of cases.

What was and is critical about yet another poor response to testing needs and such is that this is going to affect what we call the "breadbasket" of the Country and includes packers, pickers, farmers and the rest. So, we all may be impacted by it in one way or another. I think they could even lose a lot of people across-the-board that cannot easily be replaced, at least quickly.

That's not to mention the neglected migrant workers who are also more essential than the Red propaganda and General Trump would have us all think.

[SheltieLover]

5. Totally agree, NR!

IDK WTF they are thinking "reopen" as this is just ramping up in a lot of areas.

[Delphinus]

10. Yeah.

See, to me, I'm thinking we're still on the first wave - the second wave won't hit until this has made its way through and we're in the recovery stage.

[SheltieLover]

14. That's what I think, too

And they will most assuredly open schools in the fall. That really worries me! Likely more info will have come out about long-term effects by then, but we certainly do not want to cause an entire generation to suffer long-term organ damage.

And it seems to me that circumstances are indicating humans would best serve their own needs by stopping all the incessant running around & congregating. Many can work & learn from home, long-term, so do it.

Politicians are beside themselves because in this instance running roughshod over nature won't work. At. All.

I will continue isolation until a vaccine is administered to all.👍

[Hermit-The-Prog]

11. I worry about the food chain. Truckers can't haul what hasn't been grown, picked, packaged.

[tblue37]

16. We don't have the migrant workers we need to harvest produce, thanks to Trump, Miller, st al. nt

[Blue_true]

17. In 1918, historical data points to the second wave as being far deadlier than the first wave.

One reason given is that in the first wave, a virus has to get embedded in a large number of areas, so the death toll is not as great as in the second wave, where it is present pretty much everywhere and merely has to jump from host to host.

[Thunderbeast]

4. Yeah....but he said there is a lot more space out there.

[GulfCoast66]

6. I have a friend from that town.

Over a week ago he told me a teacher had it for 2 weeks and taught before her ‘cold’ got worse and she was rushed to the hospital to be put on a ventilator.

My friends teen nephew has it. Think of all the kids taking it home. It will be worse in 3 weeks.

As bright red an area as anywhere in America.

[TreadSoftly]

7. Very sorry about your friend - I hope things get better fast

Ironically, all I know of Batesville is trucks with a casket company that I believe is from that town. I used to see those trucks all the time on interstates when I traveled more.

[GulfCoast66]

12. Thank you. He no longer lives in Indiana but his family does.

Including some working at that hospital.

[tavernier]

9. They are very close to where my daughter lives.

The town is known for its biggest business: tombstone manufacture and sales. I kid you not.

[GulfCoast66]

13. I thought it was coffins? But the irony remains.

[tavernier]

15. Yes, I think you're right.

But I think I saw tombstone sales too as well.
I’ll stay away from bad jokes. They have enough problems.