Calaveras County hospital nears capacity amid surge of COVID-19 patients,
Mark Twain Medical Center in San Andreas warned on Friday that the hospital was nearing maximum capacity due to a sharp increase in COVID-19 hospitalizations over the past week.
Calaveras County’s only hospital said it typically operates with an average of nine patients at one time at its 25-bed facility, but had 17 patients on Thursday — six of whom were hospitalized for COVID-19.
“An ongoing staffing shortage threatens to worsen the situation if numbers continue to grow,” the hospital said.
The hospital said in a joint news release with the
Calaveras County Public Health Division that its staff was working hard to keep up with the current surge as its administration searches for additional help.
However, requests by the hospital’s leaders for more resources and traveling medical professionals have been met with little success as much of California and the United States grapples with a fourth wave of the deadly virus driven by the more contagious delta variant.
“Many hospitals are experiencing similar situations when trying to bring in relief staff,” Doug Archer, president and chief executive officer of Mark Twain Medical Center, said in the news release. “We’re all going to the same well, but the well is quickly drying up.”
Archer said hospital employees are “wiped out” from nearly two years of responding to the ongoing pandemic.
While the hospital is still encouraging people to seek medical care for nonemergency issues, it is also requesting that patients limit their visit to a single caregiver to avoid overcrowding. The release said it would continue to “triage patients while operating at near capacity.”
Adventist Health Sonora, the only hospital in Tuolumne County, has struggled with the same issue in recent weeks. There have consistently been 20 or more COVID-19 patients hospitalized there each day over the past week.
Nearly all of the hospitalized patients at Adventist Health Sonora have been patients who are unvaccinated, though Calaveras County has not released data on vaccination status of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations up to this point.
Both counties say that relatively low vaccination rates are contributing factors to the rise in hospitalizations.
A little over half of Tuolumne County residents 12 and older are fully vaccinated, compared with 65.8% statewide. The percentage is even worse in Calaveras County at 47.9% of its 12 and older population fully vaccinated.
Meanwhile, medical professionals and health experts in both counties and throughout the world agree that vaccines are a scientifically-proven safe and effective way to prevent severe illness from COVID-19 and reduce the stress on health care systems.
“The tools we have to fight against COVID-19, such as vaccination, masking, and social distancing are right in front of us, but stopping the further spread of COVID-19 is led by the community,” said Dr. René Ramirez, health officer of Calaveras County.