Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Broward hospitals nearing capacity
Overflow patients from Miami-Dade are adding to surge
Broward County hospitals now are as full as Miami-Dade’s as they take on the spillover of coronavirus patients coming from the south.
Miami-Dade has been the hardest-hit county in Florida for the spread of the virus, with most positive new cases in the state. After weeks of relative quiet in the COVID units, the situation reversed course in July as Jackson Memorial and other Miami-Dade hospitals saw a flood of patients and asked the state to send more nurses to help with the surge.
Now, overflow patients from Miami are pouring into Broward.
Although Miami-Dade has more cases of the virus, both counties have seen hospitalizations spike. According to state data, Miami-Dade has 17% available capacity at all of its hospitals as of Tuesday. Broward has 16% available capacity.
Broward County has experienced a rise in new infections as well as hospitalizations. At the same time, the need for ventilation in Broward hospitals has increased over the past two weeks, according to data compiled by Florida International University.
“The 219 COVID-positive patients ventilated on July 25th was a record high for Broward County,” FIU public health scientists said.
While attention has been on the bed shortage in Miami-Dade and the stress on the healthcare workers, Broward finds itself equally as taxed.
Memorial Healthcare System,
southern Broward’s public hospital district, has 595 patients with COVID-19 in beds in its five hospitals, with 20% of them in ICU. Three of Memorial’s hospitals close to the MiamiDade-Broward line are at full capacity in their intensive care units, according to data reported into the Emergency Surveillance System.
Memorial suspended elective services several weeks ago to accommodate the surge of patients coming to their hospitals as Miami-Dade hospitals filled. Over the last few weeks, the health system has resorted to recruiting travel nurses to accommodate the flood of COVID-19 patients and relieve medical staff putting in overtime.
Also, seven of Broward County’s general hospitals are at capacity for ICU beds and five hospitals have three or fewer ICU beds available, the Emergency Surveillance System showed on Tuesday morning. Regular hospital beds are filling up, too. Eight of Broward County’s hospitals have less than 8% of their 4,500 beds available.
On Tuesday, the numbers reported show the virus’ continued spread:
Broward County: 873 reported new cases and 1,287 patients hospitalized.
Palm Beach County:
640 reported new cases and 640 patients are hospitalized.
Miami-Dade County:
3,037 reported new cases and 2,150 patients hospitalized.
Broward Health spokeswoman Jennifer Smith said the occupancy for the North Broward health system reflects COVID-19 patients and those admitted for other necessary procedures, including a liver transplant and cancer surgeries. Smith said 248 patients at its four hospitals are admitted for the new coronavirus, slightly down from 275 a week ago. Broward Health has 926 total beds. The hospital suspended elective surgeries earlier this month.
“We have lot of beds full, but we don’t want to say they are filled with nothing but COVID patients,” Smith said.
According to state data, all four of Broward Health’s adult hospital beds are nearly full. They have less than 8% capacity available for general beds, and three of the hospitals are at full capacity for ICU beds. Smith said the health system can add more beds for ICU purposes as needed.
Health experts question whether a similar trend will occur to the north, with Broward overflow going to Palm Beach County hospitals. As of Tuesday, Palm Beach County has 29% available bed capacity at its hospitals, significantly more availability than in Broward.
But Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has been sounding encouraged about hospitalizations recently.
At a news briefing Tuesday from AdventHealth Orlando, DeSantis addressed hospital occupancy, stating that admissions have leveled in Central Florida. Statewide, DeSantis touted better outcomes for hospitalized COVID-19 patients in Florida, mostly because of therapeutics such as remdesiver and convalescent plasma.
“Fortunately, we have seen a statewide decline in visits for COVID-like illnesses to the ERs, and we have seen a decline in hospital census throughout the state,” he said.
During the news briefing, Dr. Eduardo Oliveira, executive director, critical care for AdventHealth said the majority of hospital admission still are people with underlying conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, obesity and disorders of the immune system.
Linnette Johnson, chief nursing officer for AdventHealth South Region, said her health system, like others in the state, has brought in nurses from outside of Florida to handle the volume in recent weeks. “What we are seeing is staff are tired, nurses are tired … we are trying to care for each other,” she said.