CORONAVIRUS

Hospitals prep as coronavirus caseload continues to climb

Jane Musgrave

jmusgrave@pbpost.com

Pre-admission tents are back up Wednesday at St. Mary's Medical Center in West Palm Beach after having been removed while the coronavirus relented. But as the pace of the spread of the disease has quickened in recent weeks, the hospital is once again checking patients before they enter.

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With coronavirus cases continuing to spiral to record levels, at least three hospitals in Palm Beach County have stopped some elective surgeries to reserve beds that may be needed to treat a surge of COVID-19 patients.

Bethesda Hospital East and West, both in Boynton Beach, and Boca Raton Regional Hospital are “temporarily rescheduling elective procedures” spokesman Michael Maucker said. The three hospitals, owned by Baptist Health South Florida, are rescheduling surgeries that require overnight stays, he said.

St. Mary’s Medical Center is again screening patients at a tent outside its campus on 45th Street in West Palm Beach. A spokesman for Palm Beach Health Network, which operates St. Mary’s and four other medical centers in the county, said there are no plans to cancel elective surgeries.

“We have appropriate supplies and plans in place to continue providing care safely,” said the spokesman for the Tenet Healthcare group that owns Delray, Good Samaritan, Palm Beach Gardens, West Boca and St. Mary’s medical centers.

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The recent surges have also placed the county’s all-important tourism industry back on life support. Various hotels in South Florida, including the Boca Raton Resort and Club, announced layoffs, with some claiming the recent headline-grabbing uptick in cases has made a bad prognosis worse.

On Wednesday, as the number of coronavirus cases nationally surpassed 3 million, an additional 9,989 people were diagnosed in Florida, raising the state’s total number of known infections to 223,783.

In Palm Beach County, an additional 593 people were added to the growing caseloads. The county has notched 18,231 cases since the pandemic began sweeping the state in March.

During the past week, a record-setting 3,784 new people have been diagnosed with the highly contagious respiratory disease in Palm Beach County.

The past week has shattered records for the state as well. In the past two weeks, the state has logged 115,000 new cases, more than half of its total since the pandemic began.

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Deaths also continued to climb. An additional 48 people were reported dead statewide, pushing the death toll to nearly 4,000.

Six fatalities, including a 33- and a 55-year-old man, were reported in the county. That means 583 people have succumbed to the disease.

Fueled by rapid rises in Florida, Texas, California and Arizona, the nation has had more than 50,000 new cases five times in the past seven days, according to the COVID Tracking Project, which bases its figures on state reports.

Hospitals continue to gird for the upswing in cases to translate into more patients seeking life-saving treatment.

JFK Medical Center said it is temporarily closing its free-standing emergency room in Boynton Beach to “shift critical staff and resources to our other campuses to help combat the COVID-19 outbreak.” Its one in Palm Beach Gardens closed in March.

While 27 percent of regular hospital beds were empty throughout the county on Wednesday, the number of intensive care beds were filling up, according to state hospital regulators. State officials don’t say whether the beds are being used by COVID-19 patients or others who are seriously ill.

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There were no empty ICU beds at JFK Medical Center North Campus in West Palm Beach or at Lakeside Medical Center in Belle Glade, state records show. The hospital in the hard-hit Glades community hasn’t performed elective surgeries since March when Gov. Ron DeSantis temporarily prohibited them to free up hospital beds in the early weeks of the pandemic.

At Wellington Regional Medical Center, just two of its 32 intensive care beds were empty while Bethesda West had room for only one more patient in its nine-bed ICU. At Good Samaritan, only one of its 16 intensive care beds wasn’t in use while three were available at St. Mary’s, state officials reported.

The pattern is repeated throughout the state. ICUs were full or nearing capacity at some 14 hospitals in both Miami-Dade County and Broward counties. The Gulf Coast, which seemed to escape the early wrath of the pandemic, is now reeling.

Beds in intensive care units are full or almost at capacity in 10 hospitals in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties.

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At a news conference with DeSantis on Tuesday, a vice president at Miami-Dade’s behemoth Jackson Health System said beds were available but the growing caseloads were straining its nursing staff. That, he explained, is why it canceled most elective surgeries last week.

Still, all hospitals have contingency plans. While Lakeside Medical Center in the Glades is out of room in its ICU, it can use other areas to treat critically ill patients, said Robin Kish, a spokeswoman for the county Health Care District.

And, she said, if worse comes to worse, it can transfer patients to other hospitals.

The actual rise in hospital admissions is difficult to gauge. The state doesn’t report how many people are hospitalized with COVID-19 on any given day. Instead, it gives a running total of how many have been hospitalized and new admissions.

Researchers at Florida International University have analyzed hospital data for Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties.

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They reported that a record-setting 611 people were being treated for COVID-19 on Monday at hospitals in Palm Beach County. That is a 24 percent jump from the 493 who were being treated on June 30.

Of those hospitalized, 121 were in ICUs and more than half, 72, were on ventilators, they said.

The trend in the three South Florida counties is ominous, they said. “There have been record highs obtained for hospitalizations,” the researchers said. “This represents a major concern for area hospital capacity.”

Layoffs at hotels

The recent surge in cases have been devastating for tourism-related businesses as well.

In recent days, the Boca Resort and Club, Embassy Suites in West Palm Beach and even the famed Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach alerted the state that they will be forced to lay off hundreds of workers.

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While both the Boca resort and the Fontainebleau said they had hoped to avoid layoffs by putting workers on furlough, both said that is no longer possible. Instead the resort said it will lay off 995 employes and the Fontainebleau said 1,309 workers would lose their jobs.

“We did not and could not have foreseen how broadly and deeply the COVID-19 epidemic would spread and affect our business,” the Boca resort wrote in a letter to the state unemployment office.

The Fontainebleau said the recent surge of cases, which attracted national media attention, was the death knell for a hoped-for recovery.

“Indeed, after recent national media reporting on increased cases, this past week there has been a rapid decline in leisure room night bookings and this weekend alone thousands of group and leisure rooms have been canceled,” it wrote.

Embassy Suites said it was laying off 40 more workers because of the drop-off in business caused by the coronavirus. PGA Resort & Spa last month wrote a similar letter to notify the state it was laying off 348 people. Dozens of tourism-related businesses throughout the state have done the same.

The Palm Beach County Medical Society said people can do their part to stop the spread of the virus and will help put people back to work and reduce hospital admissions.

On Wednesday, it launched a media campaign to encourage people to wear masks, engage in social distancing and practice good hygiene, particularly hand-washing.

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More importantly, the society said it will encourage people infected with the coronavirus not to rush to the hospital unless they are experiencing serious symptoms, including having trouble breathing, confusion and persistent chest pain.

“Cooperation from every single citizen is absolutely critical in order for us to get a handle on this escalating crisis,” said Ivy Faske, president of Palm Beach County Medical Society Services. “If everyone who tests positive for COVID-19 runs to the hospital, beds will quickly run out and we won’t be able to care for the most crucially ill.”

jmusgrave@pbpost.com

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