Peoria, Ill — Hospitals and medical centers across the Peoria area are under heavy strain amidst an unprecedented wave of incoming COVID-19 patients as well as ongoing staffing shortages.
The quote from Jennifer Croland, Chief Nursing Officer at OSF Health St. Francis Medical Center was, “the level of health care service our community has come to expect is being severely disrupted.”
Dr. Samer Sader, Chief Medical Officer at UnityPoint Health — Central Illinois said, “we’re at a higher level of COVID-19 patients with severe illness than at any other point during the whole pandemic.”
As has long been the case, the vast majority of the seriously ill COVID-19 patients are also unvaccinated.
Top health officials in the area indicate there has been a massive uptick in the number of patients being admitted with serious COVID-related illness and that has combined with an across-the-board shortage of doctors and nurses.
Many of those medical professionals are getting sick with COVID-19 themselves and are then forced to quarantine.
Per CDC guidelines, some of those doctors and nurses who test positive for the virus are still being allowed to work, but only if it’s absolutely necessary.
This entire circumstance has led both of Peoria’s largest health systems to suspend elective or non-essential surgeries until further notice once again.
UnityPoint’s Dr. Sader says it’s almost impossible right now to transfer patients to other hospitals in the region because everyone is filled to capacity.
He says people who should have ICU beds are currently being forced to wait for them.
And people who need emergency department care are waiting hours longer than they’ve ever had to.
Croland (with OSF Health) said St. Francis is seeing 1 in 5 beds occupied by COVID-19 patients right now.
She and other health system leaders say no hospital is built to handle 1 in 5 cases of anything.
She says they are built to handle a much wider variety of illnesses.
Dr. Sader says the biggest favor residents can do to help relieve the strain at area hospitals right now is not to rely on them for COVID-19 testing needs as some have done.
