‘Tremendous amount of pressure’: Mount Nittany Health officials respond, adjust to rising COVID-19 cases
After reporting record-breaking COVID-19 hospitalizations this week, Mount Nittany Medical Center is bracing for more, but officials say the health system is hurting.
Pleading with community members to practice responsible behavior, health officials have outlined plans to meet health care needs, but say front-line workers can’t prevent transmission on their own.
“We don’t want to sound like alarmists, but the health system is under tremendous amount of pressure every day,” Mount Nittany Health Chief Medical Officer Dr. Nirmal Joshi said Thursday. “What the community can do to help is to please, please, please follow responsible practices.”
Daily coronavirus cases and hospital admissions have continued to rise, prompting Mount Nittany Medical Center to cancel all elective surgeries and procedures through January. Seventy-three COVID-19 patients received treatment at the hospital on Tuesday, Joshi said. Though that number decreased by about 10 by Thursday, nearly 40% of inpatients were COVID positive, he said.
Canceling elective procedures helped free up hospital space and alleviate staffing burdens, Joshi said. Elective procedures are surgeries that can wait, but if a non-COVID patient requires admission, Mount Nittany will not deny care, he added.
“We have two active COVID wings — fully-staffed COVID wings — and we’re adding a third,” Joshi said.
This additional wing would increase capacity — particularly for patients who require a negative air pressure room or isolation — but the hospital has flexibility when it comes to expanding treatment space, Joshi said.
Maintaining the standard of care, Joshi said Mount Nittany’s patient-to-staff ratio has not changed. He added that the hospital is acquiring temporary staff — anyone who is “well-qualified to be able to care for people in the hospital” — and shifting employees to meet hospital demands.
To reduce transmission, Joshi said Mount Nittany tests all patients for the coronavirus and never places COVID-positives in the same room as a non-COVID patient. Using a “methodical” system, Joshi said the hospital divides patients into three groups: Patients undergoing surgery who are tested before operations, patients who are admitted and have tested positive for the virus and individuals who require admission but have not been tested.
“We test them to make sure we can appropriately triage them to a location that segregates them, if they’re negative, from COVID-positive patients,” Joshi said.
Right now, Mount Nittany’s health plan is working, but Joshi said the community must follow guidelines, so the health system can keep up with patient needs.
Mount Nittany Health Executive Vice President for System Development and Chief Strategy Officer Tom Charles echoed that message Thursday during a presentation to the Centre County Board of Commissioners. He outlined the “alarming” rise in COVID-19 cases and hospitalization rates and stressed the “human impact” of the virus.
“The death toll that we’ve had in Centre County has certainly been going up,” he said. “We have seen the number of individuals in long-term care facilities, in our own facility that are passing away. It’s distressing. It is a consequence of what we’re going through.”
In addition to a rising death toll — the Centre County coroner has confirmed 107 deaths, while the state Health Department lists 139 — Charles stressed the long-term side effects that can result from contracting the coronavirus. Symptoms can impact an individual’s neurological and motor functions.
December brought the county’s highest monthly case total due to high daily numbers at the start. There have been 2,590 cases this month. September saw the second highest total at 2,224 cases, with November following at 2,115.
“The challenge that we’ve seen has been a significant bump in the number of cases post-Thanksgiving,” Charles said, adding that the health system expects to see another rise after the holidays. “We’re still not in a good place, I would say, overall as a county. We have very, very high rates of new cases.”
As of Thursday, the state hospital dashboard shows that 12% of intensive care beds are available in Pennsylvania. The state Department of Health reports that 5,962 people hospitalized with COVID-19 — almost double the springtime peak — and 1,178 of those patients are in intensive care.
The “vast majority” of hospitalizations are not from long-term care facilities or prisons; they are community members, Charles said.
“This is not overbear in a long-term care facility; it’s not overbear in a prison; it’s not overbear on campus,” he said. “It’s all of those places, but it’s in the community. That’s where this is happening, and that’s what’s driving the hospitalizations far and away.”
