Beaufort hospital hits ICU capacity but is ‘not overwhelmed’ as COVID-19 patients rise
The ICU at Beaufort Memorial Hospital is full.
The 12-bed intensive care unit had hit capacity as of Friday morning, said hospital spokesperson Courtney McDermott.
Nine people diagnosed with COVID-19 were in the ICU as of Thursday. Four of those patients were on ventilators. The hospital has 34 ventilators in total.
There were 26 patients hospital-wide who had contracted the disease as of Thursday, McDermott added. One person was also under investigation for a possible coronavirus infection.
“We are not sending patients to other ICUs unless they need tertiary care, which has always been our protocol. While the ICU has been at or near capacity, they are not overwhelmed,” McDermott wrote in a statement Friday.
Tertiary care is highly specialized medical care such as neurosurgery operations.
On July 9, only 14 confirmed COVID-19 patients were admitted at Beaufort Memorial Hospital. And just six of those people were in the ICU.
The Hilton Head Regional Healthcare system, meanwhile, was treating 16 COVID-19 patients as of about 2:30 p.m. Thursday, according to a spokesperson for Tenet Healthcare, which owns Hilton Head and Coastal Carolina hospitals.
That’s a drop from last week, when as of July 17 the regional system had 23 patients with confirmed coronavirus infections. There were 17 COVID-19 patients on July 9.
The system had three COVID-19-positive patients in ICU beds as of Thursday, added Tenet spokesperson Daisy Burroughs in a statement.
“Both hospitals have the ability to repurpose space and increase critical care services in the facilities, if it is needed,” Burroughs wrote.
Beaufort Memorial Hospital and Hilton Head Regional Healthcare have not requested assistance from the S.C. Emergency Management Division in the past week, the spokespeople said.
But other hospitals have turned to the state for help amid a rise in COVID-19 admissions.
The Regional Medical Center in Orangeburg County recently asked the S.C. National Guard to build tents outside its main building to treat COVID-19 patients if new cases outpace bed capacity. And about 40 National Guard medics are stepping in to help Grand Strand area hospitals as coronavirus cases continue to spike in Horry and Georgetown counties.
During a conference call with reporters on July 16, an S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control official said DHEC, EMD and others are working on hospital surge plans amid the statewide wave of COVID-19 cases.
As of Friday, about 72% of inpatient hospital beds were occupied in the Palmetto State, according to DHEC data. Just over 1,660 patients who had contracted COVID-19 or who were under investigation for possible coronavirus infections were in hospital beds statewide.
DHEC data show that 51% of the beds in Beaufort County hospitals, and 39.8% in Jasper County, were in use as of late Thursday. DHEC does not provide a county-by-county breakdown of how hospital beds are being used.
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.
Dr. Brannon Traxler, a DHEC physician, during a conference call with reporters said Friday was the 17th-consecutive day that more than 1,400 confirmed coronavirus cases were reported statewide in a single day.
“Our message to South Carolinians remains the same,” Traxler said. “Please help take care of each other because we really, really are all in this together.”
This story was originally published July 25, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
