COVID-19 patient numbers drop at Beaufort hospital, rise slightly south of the Broad River
The number of COVID-19 patients at Beaufort Memorial Hospital has again dropped off, but that figure rose slightly week-over-week at Tenet Healthcare-run medical centers south of the Broad River.
As of Friday, there were 22 coronavirus patients at the Beaufort hospital, according to Dr. Kurt Gambla, the facility’s chief medical officer. On Aug. 13 there had been 27. A week before that there were 35.
Gambla on Friday said six coronavirus patients were in ICU beds. Three of those patients were on ventilators. There are 34 ventilators at the hospital in total and the 12-bed intensive care unit can expand to 14 beds.
The Hilton Head Regional Healthcare system, meanwhile, was treating 10 coronavirus 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 slight increase from Aug. 13, when the system had eight patients with confirmed coronavirus infections.
Just one of the 10 COVID-19 patients was in an ICU bed as of Thursday, wrote Tenet spokesperson Daisy Burroughs in a statement.
Beaufort Memorial Hospital and Hilton Head Regional Healthcare have not requested assistance from the S.C. Emergency Management Division in recent weeks, Burroughs and Gambla added.
Other hospitals, however, turned to the state for help in July amid a spike in COVID-19 admissions.
The number of COVID-19 patients hospitalized at one time in South Carolina peaked on July 23, when over 1,700 people were admitted, according to S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control data. There have been small decreases in those daily numbers since.
As of Friday, DHEC said almost 1,080 of the state’s 8,351 occupied inpatient beds were filled by COVID-19 patients. Over 150 of those patients were on ventilators.
About 81% of all inpatient beds in South Carolina were in use Friday, DHEC data show.
Since the pandemic began, Beaufort County has recorded a total of 234 coronavirus hospitalizations, according to DHEC. The state agency also says 5.3% of the county’s cases have resulted in hospitalization.
