Erin Jones, Barnes-Jewish Hospital
Starting Monday, BJC HealthCare and Washington University Physicians will suspend some elective surgeries and procedures that can safely be postponed for at least eight weeks.
"We must take this drastic measure both to increase our hospital capacity and ensure we have the staff available to continue providing exceptional care for our patients," BJC President Richard J. Liekweg and Washington University Physicians CEO Dr. Paul J. Scheel Jr. said in a joint statement released on Sunday. "We made this decision in an effort to support our team members as best we can."
On Saturday, Missouri reported 6,346 new coronavirus cases. Last week, St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson and St. Louis County Executive Dr. Sam Page announced new health restrictions for the city and county. In the city and county, private gatherings of more than 10 people are banned. In the county, Page is urging residents to stay at home unless they're going essential tasks such as going to work, to the doctor, or grocery shopping, and to wear masks when outside the home. (You can read more about both the city and county's health orders here.)
"We know how tiresome and restrictive this is," Liekweg and Scheel wrote in their statement. "We are all collectively weary of these measures. But they continue to be our best defense, and we must dig deeper to stay the course while the vaccines continue to be developed and produced."
"We're at 90 percent capacity with a staff that has been at this for about nine months," says Denise Murphy, vice president of patient care and chief nurse executive at BJC HealthCare. Murphy says BJC is fielding service requests from not just hospitals in the region but ones from other states. "We're really at a point of extreme exhaustion."
Photography by Erin Jones, Barnes-Jewish Hospital
Murphy says they're being nimble in how they're moving patients across the system for the care level they need. On top of that, across the country, not just in the St. Louis region, hospitals are experiencing nursing shortages. The pandemic has only amplified the issue, Murphy says. On Friday, BJC sent an email—an "all hands on deck" call—asking employees across its network that if they believe they could work some additional hours, and possibly in an area that is not their own, to take a survey and let leadership know what they're comfortable taking on. One possibility: Someone who's previously worked in BJC's office settings could become a patient care sitter after a required amount of training.
The burden of treating COVID-19 patients, Murphy explains, is the different level of staffing required. COVID-19 patients have more respiratory needs, as many but not all are on ventilators. While nurses normally take on five patients, caring for COVID-19 patients is so intense that they cannot take on a usual amount. "We're walking this fine line of ensuring we have enough staff to take care of our COVID and non-COVID patients," she says.
In last Friday's pandemic task force briefing, Dr. Alex Garza urged Missouri leadership to implement a statewide mask mandate and a safer at home order; Governor Mike Parson recently stated that mask mandates should be issued at the local level. Although Missouri is already breaking COVID-19 and hospitalization records, Garza said the peak of the virus is still to come and the number of patients hospitals are seeing could soon double.
This week, the Missouri Department of Health & Senior Services is offering free tests to all Missouri residents (regardless of if you're showing symptoms or have proof of insurance) at the following locations:
- Edgar M. Queeny Park: Nov. 17 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
- Hazelwood Community Center: Nov. 18 from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
- Kennedy Recreation Center: Nov. 19 from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Murphy stresses that BJC is still open for everything patients might need. "We don't want to frighten the community by having them feel that if you have chest pain or need to be seen in an emergency department that you shouldn't come because you won't get a bed," she says. "That's not the case."
