BUFFALO, N.Y. — While a lot of people have been worried about the latest COVID crunch and the increased caseloads for our area hospitals, it turns out that they have been in a case of institutional critical condition for some time, especially when it comes to staffing and other elements.
Erie County reports COVID hospitalizations are now over 200 for local hospitals. Chief medical officers collectively said during a county briefing earlier this week that they are simply running out of room to put everyone who needs treatment.
Dr. Sam Cloud, who is Erie County Medical Center's associate medical director, said: "We are all full, full, full, so we don't really have additional space or nursing capacity to take care of a bunch of new COVID cases going into the winter. So that's why we are really pushing as the health care professionals vaccination because we simply don't have physical space to put more patients right now.
"I think New York City has demonstrated what happens when almost all the adults, literally, they're up about 97 percent of people above the age of 18 have been vaccinated, and thus New York City does not have the hospital crunch with COVID patients that we are staring down here in Western New York."
Catholic Health actually set up a COVID-only hospital last year at the St. Joseph's Campus and handled some 2,100 cases before that specific mission ended in May. But a spokeswoman says more difficult staffing shortages rule out that option right now as they focus on covering their primary hospitals.
Dr. Cloud also points to staffing nationwide.
"There's some indication that nationally up to 20 percent of the health care workforce has left health care currently, and so there's a big crunch," Dr. Cloud said.
Cloud says ECMC has had 400 jobs open and just recently hired five new ER nurses.
And as for why they're currently seeing a multitude of patients, Dr. Cloud says there a multitude of factors.
"The reason it's been that high is partially because of COVID," Dr. Cloud said. "We have 30 patients in the hospital today, and that's quite a big number. You know, we don't have 30 of any other type of patient in the hospital, so the COVID numbers are rising.
He added: "But in addition to that, patients are sicker than they were before the pandemic, and that's probably a combination of them delaying some health care during the pandemic. There's been more alcohol and substance abuse since the pandemic started. More depression."
2 On Your Side also sought Dr. Cloud's big-picture perspective asking, "Do you fear that this could get worse before it gets better unfortunately here in Western New York?"
Cloud replied: "I do, because we still have many, many Western New Yorkers who are unvaccinated. And Delta is so infectious, it's going to find them all, and so a proportion of those patients will require hospitalization. And so, yeah, I am concerned for the winter. We all are."