BATAVIA, N.Y. — Hospital admissions in the Finger Lakes region has shown very little sign of slowing down.
According to the state’s regional dashboard on COVID hospitalizations, 964 people on Monday were in Finger Lakes area hospitals with COVID-19, not far from the grim milestone of 1,000 people hospitalized.
“It's very concerning over the past few weeks we have seen that steady increase both in the community presence as well as in the hospital level,” said Dan Ireland, the president of United Memorial Medical Center in Batavia.
While COVID hospitalizations have been dropping in Western New York in recent weeks, they've been surging in the Finger Lakes.
The state's regional dashboard on hospitalizations says just two days ago 945 people were hospitalized with COVID-19, more than four times higher the region's peak in the spring.
2 On Your Side's Jeff Preval asked Dan Ireland if the hospitals are overwhelmed.
“They're very tight, I struggle with the word overwhelmed, Jeff, just because our health care systems as a whole no matter where you are very dynamic,” Ireland said.
Rochester Regional says it's using numerous strategies to boost capacity, such as adding more beds, adding COVID pod units, and at United Memorial Medical Center, a medical floor has been turned into a COVID unit.
Still, Rochester Regional's average length of stay for COVID patients is increasing from three days to between five and seven days.
“That creates the volume that you're hearing and seeing about in hospitals is when you can turn them out and get people back home in three days your beds open up quicker,” Ireland said.
He says many steps are being taken to help out frontline workers such as pulling in clinic nurses, bringing back retirees and bringing in student nurses, all this as hospitals prep for New Year's Eve.
“We've been actually working on those plans for the last two weeks to be able to have some additional staffing in house should we get an influx,” Ireland said.
New Year's Eve of course, traditionally a very busy time for hospitals. But, with public celebrations being cancelled this year, hospital officials hope that reduces overall hospital admissions.
Ireland tells 2 On Your Side the most common treatments, Rochester Regional and many other hospitals are using to treat COVID include Remdesivir, which was used to help treat President Donald Trump, and high flow oxygen treatment, with less reliance on ventilators.
Kaleida Health says emergency rooms across the area are busy not just with COVID patients, but also those with cold and flu.
Genesee County officials plan to have a COVID briefing on Thursday, updating the public on what they’re doing in response to a rise in COVID cases.
In a statement, Paul Pettit, the public health director for Genesee Orleans County Health Departments says:
“We Continue to work collaboratively with our health care partners and remain concerned with the high number of active cases hospitalized in our county and in the Finger Lakes region. Our hospital bed and ICU capacity continues to be a focus area. We’re continuing to encourage masking, social distancing and no non-essential gatherings of any size to minimize spread and reduce positive cases in our community which will reduce the burden on our health care systems.”