Doctors Ration Intensive Care as Covid-19 Patients Stretch Hospitals [View all]

[TomCADem]

Source: MSN

Some patients who need intensive care cannot receive it, as overstretched hospitals in some U.S. regions struggle with the pandemic’s largest and longest surge by prioritizing beds for only the most urgent patients.

Covid-19 hospitalizations in the U.S. reached another record Wednesday of 100,266, after climbing for more than two months in the most geographically widespread surge of the pandemic. Hospital administrators say they are racing to hire more nurses, squeezing extra beds onto floors and, in some cases, moving patients across state lines to find room for the critically ill.

In some overrun pockets of the country, these emergency measures are no longer enough, doctors and nurses say.

An estimated one in four intensive-care beds nationally is occupied by Covid-19 patients, up from one in 10 in September, according to the University of Minnesota’s Covid-19 Hospitalization Tracking Project. That has raised overall ICU occupancy, according to federal estimates, which is further constrained by staffing shortages as health-care workers are exposed or infected. More than 1,000 hospitals Wednesday reported a critical staffing shortage, federal data show.

Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/doctors-ration-intensive-care-as-covid-19-patients-stretch-hospitals/ar-BB1bBLyP?li=BBnb7Kz

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