25 November 2020
ST. LOUIS (KMOV.com) — Rural hospitals get a bit of the blame for St. Louis hospitals getting so crowded. Outskirt counties have been sending their most critically-ill COVID-19 patients to the larger, better equipped hospitals. But now, some of those smaller hospitals are stepping up to relieve the strain.
Community Hospital of Staunton, Illinois is a 25-bed hospital that’s part of the Anderson Healthcare System and periodically receives patients transferred from hospitals in its network. But on Tuesday, it received a patient that was transferred from a large hospital in St. Louis outside its network.
[READ: At capacity, St. Louis area hospitals send COVID-19 patients needing ICU beds to other hospitals]
Rural hospitals don’t have the capability that large hospitals in the St. Louis area have for caring for the most critically-ill COVID-19 patients. Over 100 COVID-19 patients in intensive care units in St. Louis hospitals are from outside the immediate area. But rural hospitals want to relieve some of the burden on the big hospitals.
“We have reached out to some of the other larger hospitals in our metropolitan region and we are accepting patients that just need to come for recovery,” Cindy Sadler said. She works with the Iron County Medical Center.
The Iron County Medical Center is another rural hospital that is offering its empty beds for what some are calling ‘reverse triag.’
“Under normal circumstances we are not allowed to take transfers from a higher level of care to a lower level of care. But during this public health emergency and pandemic there are waivers in place to allow for just this very thing,” Sadler said.
The medical center has started accepting transfers of COVID-19 patients who are no longer in critical condition, but just need more time before they can go home.
“They need some therapy, some additional respiratory therapy and some strengthening to get better,” Sadler said. “We can take those patients and free up those beds to put sicker patients in as well.”
Rural hospital are hoping this new partnership with the larger hospitals will prevent either one from being so full they have to turn away patients.
Source: kmov.com