On Friday, Aug. 6 the Kansas City Chamber of Commerce hosted an online forum for community health leaders, elected officials and school district administrators
Dr. Steven Stites of the University of Kansas Medical System presented an overview of the state of the Kansas City metro area hospital systems, including those hospitalized, those in the ICU and those on ventilators.
Stites compared numbers metro-wide, comparing the current situation to last fall. On Nov. 5, 2020 the seven-day average of COVID cases peaked at 695. On Aug. 5, the seven-day average was at 737.
Northland hospitals such as St. Luke’s, Liberty and North Kansas City hospitals are operating at or near capacity, with their COVID wards full, with the overwhelming majority of cases in unvaccinated patients. Dozens of hospital employees are also out due to either COVID infection or exposure. The focus on COVID patients is causing difficulties in manning emergency rooms and handling general hospital services.
Across the metro area, hospitals are taxed, with the Kansas City VA Hospital reporting all deaths but one were in unvaccinated patients. St. Luke’s East has been particularly hard hit, with a 69 percent rise in cases over the last month, with many of these patients coming in as transfers from southern Missouri. Children’s Mercy hit an all-time high in young patients infected with COVID on Friday, according to Dr. Jennifer Wells, as well as a spike in pediatric RSV.
“Your hospitals are on the verge of a real crisis here, because we don’t have many more beds to give to the rising number of patients we’re seeing,” Stites said. Hospitals are converting ER beds and other areas such as dialysis and endoscopy wards into COVID units, and are still unable to meet the demand.
Stites painted a grim picture of the future as bed and staffing shortages force long wait times or closures of emergency rooms, resulting in difficulties in caring for acute injuries and health emergencies such as heart attacks and strokes.
Officials said masking and vaccinations are the best ways to slow the spread of the highly transmissible delta variant and help hospitals better serve the community.
“We need masking back to bend this curve because your hospitals in the Kansas City metro area are in trouble,” Stites said. “We’re not able to take all the people we can and that’s time-sensitive diagnoses struggling to get into our hospitals and those delays mean we’re wasting heart tissue, we are wasting brain tissue and that’s not the outcome any of us want to see.”
Inpatient and out-patient pediatric cases are on the rise, and as the weather cools and schools reopen, COVID, RSV and influenza will all become potential dangers, according to Children’s Mercy officials. Officials suggest creating cocoons of vaccinated adults around children to help keep them safe. Masking is also a key part of the mitigation strategy.