Hospitals in crisis in least vaccinated state: Mississippi

JACKSON, MISS. » As patients stream into Mississippi hospitals one after another, doctors and nurses have become all too accustomed to the rampant denial and misinformation about COVID-19 in the nation’s least vaccinated state.

People in denial about the severity of their own illness or the virus itself, with visitors frequently trying to enter hospitals without masks. The painful look of recognition on patients’ faces when they realize they made a mistake not getting vaccinated. The constant misinformation about the coronavirus that they discuss with medical staff.

“There’s no point in being judgmental in that situation. There’s no point in telling them, ‘You should have gotten the vaccine or you wouldn’t be here,’” said Dr. Risa Moriarity, executive vice chair of the University of Mississippi Medical Center’s emergency department. “We don’t do that. We try not to preach and lecture them. Some of them are so sick they can barely even speak to us.”

Mississippi’s low vaccinated rate, with about 38% of the state’s 3 million people fully inoculated against COVID-19, is driving a surge in cases and hospitalizations that is overwhelming medical workers. The workers are angry and exhausted over both the workload and refusal by residents to embrace the vaccine.

Physicians at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, the only level one trauma center in all of Mississippi, are caring for the sickest patients in the state.

The emergency room and intensive care unit are beyond capacity, almost all with COVID patients. Moriarity said it’s like a “logjam” with beds in hallways, patients being treated in triage rooms. Paramedics are delayed in responding to new calls because they have to wait with patients who need care.

In one hospital in Mississippi, four pregnant women died last week, said state health officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs. Three of the cases required emergency C-sections and babies were born severely premature.

“This is the reality that we’re looking at and, again, none of these individuals were vaccinated,” Dobbs said.

Moriarity said it’s hard to put into words the fatigue she and her colleagues feel. Going into work each day has become taxing and heartbreaking, she said.

“Most of us still have enough emotional reserve to be compassionate, but you leave work at the end of the day just exhausted by the effort it takes to drug that compassion up for people who are not taking care of themselves and the people around them,” she said.