Facing an “overwhelming increase” in COVID-19 patients, the hospital serving Rock Springs on Friday opened an additional unit to treat infected patients and banned visitors in most circumstances.
The moves come after an emergency meeting Friday afternoon of the Memorial Hospital of Sweetwater County Incident Command team, the hospital said.
“We are at a crisis level,” Kim White, the hospital’s emergency services director, said in a statement. “We appreciate the patience.”
The southwest Wyoming hospital was treating 16 COVID patients on Friday afternoon and had opened its same-day surgery unit as an additional coronavirus ward.
The facility had already halted elective surgeries due to the rising number of COVID patients. Emergent and urgent care patients were being treated on a case-by-case basis, the hospital said.
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“The emergency room staff is extremely busy keeping up with the number of people presenting in the ER,” White said in the statement. “Extra members of the hospital’s healthcare team have been brought in to help cover the influx.”
By Friday evening, the leadership team had opted to prohibit visitors until further notice with one exception: one visitor would be allowed with obstetrics patients.
Hospitals across Wyoming are contending with a crush of patients. Hospitalizations have spiked with the emergence of the delta variant, a more contagious strain of the novel coronavirus that first appeared here in March 2020.
On Friday, Wyoming hospitals were treating a combined 189 COVID patients, according to data from the state health department. That number was down slightly from earlier in the week, but dramatically up from this spring, when less than two dozen patients were hospitalized.
Hospitals in several cities including Gillette, Cody, Laramie and Lander were reporting no open ICU beds on Friday.
In Casper, 30% of Wyoming Medical Center’s patients earlier this week were being treated for COVID.