‘We’ve seen a surge’: Beaufort hospital reports COVID-19 uptick but stable bed capacity
The number of COVID-19-positive patients at Beaufort Memorial Hospital has nearly doubled since last week.
There were 45 coronavirus patients admitted to the medical center as of Wednesday, said hospital CEO Russell Baxley. There were just 26 last Thursday.
“We’ve seen a surge,” Baxley said in an interview. “We’re seeing the hospital fill up.”
The executive in early July said the facility was trying to keep confirmed or suspected COVID-19 patients on its 28-bed fifth floor, unless they required ICU admission.
As of Wednesday, though, coronavirus patients had spilled onto the hospital’s third floor and were also being treated in a “stepdown unit” next to the second floor’s ICU.
Despite that uptick, however, Baxley on Wednesday stressed that the medical center is not overwhelmed and is not close to activating its state-approved field hospital plan, which would convert the Beaufort Middle School Gym into a temporary health care site.
Bed turnover, ICU patients
The recent turnover of available beds is encouraging, Baxley said.
Coronavirus patients are cycling in and out of the hospital faster than they were at the beginning of the pandemic.
So, while the hospital has more coronavirus-positive admissions than usual, doctors aren’t running out of space, Baxley said.
Physicians, he added, are now familiar with COVID-19 treatments, including the use of an antiviral medication called remdesivir and plasma.
“We’ve gotten better at it, so we’ve seen the length of stay reduced,” he said. “We’re seeing ‘med-surg’ (medical-surgical) patients stay two to four days.”
There has also been an increase in the number of 20- to 40-year-olds with COVID-19 admitted at the hospital in July. Those patients are less likely to need weeks of treatment, Baxley said, although that does happen in some cases.
The ICU, while at or near capacity throughout the month, had beds available as of Wednesday, the CEO added.
The hospital has 12 ICU beds under normal circumstances, but that can be increased to 14 if need be. Nine patients were in the ICU Wednesday morning. Eight of them had contracted COVID-19.
“We have these conversations, ‘Hey, yes we have 12 patients (in the ICU), but two patients have been weaned off the ventilator, they’re doing well, they can be downgraded today to our stepdown unit, and we can make room for more ICU admissions,’” Baxley said.
The hospital would be concerned if the ICU maxed out and several patients were on ventilators and couldn’t be discharged for weeks.
“We just haven’t bumped up against that yet,” he said.
Because of those openings, Baxley said that, as of now, the hospital isn’t considering another suspension of all “non-urgent” elective surgeries.
Occupancy levels are re-evaluated every day, though, he said.
If the facility runs out of room and needs to admit COVID-19 patients on its fourth floor, where non-coronavirus patients are being treated, or if the ICU becomes severely inundated, then hospital officials might take another look at elective surgeries.
The hospital temporarily halted non-urgent elective surgeries in March when the pandemic began.
Jennifer Read, the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control’s chief of staff, on July 17 said state agencies are receiving daily coronavirus reports from about 80 hospitals.
Read said Roper St. Francis Healthcare in the Charleston area had recently suspended elective surgeries to make room for COVID-19 patients.
“On a given day in South Carolina, about 50% of hospital occupancy is from what’s called elective procedures,” Read said.
As of Wednesday, 79% of ICU beds across the state were in use, according to DHEC data. There were 1,596 COVID-19 patients hospitalized in the state, with 242 of those on ventilators.
Surge planning
Before setting up the state-approved field hospital at Beaufort Middle School Gym, Baxley said the medical center would cancel elective surgeries, put coronavirus patients on the hospital’s fourth floor and open an acute care rehab unit for those diagnosed with COVID-19, among other steps.
“We’re a ways away from that,” the CEO said. “Forty-five is a lot of patients, but as long as we’re seeing the length of stays consistently stay low, we’re able to open up bed space.”
Baxley hopes the next month offers a reprieve for his staff, considering there are no major travel holidays and mandatory masking ordinances in Beaufort County have been in place for weeks.
The county, though, logged a record-breaking daily high of newly confirmed coronavirus cases Monday, with 110 infections. The seven-day average Wednesday was 89 new cases reported every 24 hours in the county — the highest average this year.
South Carolina has seen record highs of coronavirus hospitalizations this month.
And the state’s percentage of COVID-19 tests that turn up positive — an indicator of the coronavirus’ spread — has been rising in recent weeks.
The Regional Medical Center in Orangeburg County recently asked the S.C. National Guard to erect tents outside its main building to treat COVID-19 patients if new cases outpace bed capacity.
And about 40 National Guard medics stepped in to help Grand Strand area hospitals as coronavirus cases spiked in Horry and Georgetown counties.
“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried,” Baxley said. “It’s not predictable.”
This story was originally published July 30, 2020 at 4:45 AM with the headline "‘We’ve seen a surge’: Beaufort hospital reports COVID-19 uptick but stable bed capacity."
