COVID-19 admissions continue to rise at Beaufort Co. hospitals
Hospitals around the Lowcountry are filling up with COVID-19 patients.
As of Friday morning, 25 patients at Beaufort Memorial Hospital had contracted the disease. Two people with coronavirus infections were also in the emergency room, waiting for beds. There were just 14 confirmed COVID-19 patients at the hospital on July 9.
Of the 25 patients Friday, five people were in ICU beds. Two of those people were on ventilators. The hospital has 29 ventilators in total.
Courtney McDermott, a hospital spokesperson, confirmed that 11 of 12 total ICU beds were filled as of Friday morning.
Russell Baxley, CEO of Beaufort Memorial Hospital, previously told The Island Packet that staff try to keep non-ICU COVID-19 patients on the hospital’s 28-bed fifth floor.
“As that unit fills up, and we start to spill over into other units, then that’s a concern,” he said in early July.
The Hilton Head Regional Healthcare system, meanwhile, was treating 23 COVID-19 patients as of about 4 p.m. Friday, according to a spokesperson for Tenet Healthcare, which owns Hilton Head and Coastal Carolina hospitals. Four of those people were in ICU beds.
On July 9, there were 17 confirmed COVID-19 patients in the regional system.
McDermott on Friday said Beaufort Memorial Hospital had asked the S.C. Emergency Management Division to help out at a Wednesday coronavirus testing event on Lady’s Island. The hospital also recently requested a shipment of three-ply masks through EMD.
Daisy Burroughs, the Tenet Healthcare spokesperson, in a Friday statement wrote that Hilton Head Regional Healthcare has not sought EMD assistance in the past week.
During a conference call with reporters Thursday, an S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control official said DHEC, EMD and others are working on hospital surge plans amid the statewide spike in COVID-19 cases.
Jennifer Read, DHEC’s chief of staff, said the agencies are receiving daily coronavirus reports from about 80 hospitals. Read said Roper St. Francis Healthcare in the Charleston area recently suspended elective surgeries to make room for COVID-19 patients. And according to its website, the Horry County-based Conway Medical Center has halted elective surgeries.
“On a given day in South Carolina, about 50% of hospital occupancy is from what’s called elective procedures,” Read said.
As of Friday, 72.3% of hospital beds statewide were in use, according to DHEC. About 1,590 of the roughly 7,880 occupied beds were filled by patients who had either tested positive or are under investigation for COVID-19.
DHEC data show 67% of the beds in Beaufort County hospitals, and 57.1% in Jasper County, were in use as of Friday. DHEC does not provide a county-by-county breakdown of how hospital beds are being used.
Over 65,800 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in the Palmetto State since March, according to DHEC data released Friday. Beaufort County has had 2,333 cases.
South Carolina logged high numbers of newly confirmed coronavirus infections in June, and that trend has continued into July.
Public health officials say a lack of social distancing and increased travel around the state have contributed to the surge, among other things.
Dr. Kathleen Cartmell, a public health professor at Clemson University, in an interview Monday said DHEC’s regular COVID-19 case updates reflect days-old disease spread.
“What we’re seeing now really represents what was going on in the community a week ago,” she said.
Cartmell added that the pandemic has taken a turn for the worst in South Carolina.
“We’re actually in the most dangerous situation now,” she said. “Now’s not the time to start feeling comfortable.”
