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Source: https://news.yahoo.com/tipping-point-kansas-city-hospitals-193117650.html
‘A tipping point’: Kansas City hospitals are turning away patients due to COVID surge
Luke Nozicka
Wed, July 21, 2021, 3:31 PM·2 min read
Like other hospitals in the Kansas City region, the University of Kansas Health System is turning down transfer patients because its beds are full, setting up a potential crisis, its chief medical officer said Wednesday.
“I think we’re at a tipping point,” Steve Stites said during KU’s daily briefing. “If we don’t take it seriously, we could easily end up back where we were in November.”
The hospital is “running full steam,” like others in the metro, because of an increase in COVID-19 patients and others returning to the hospital who may have stayed away at the height of the pandemic. Last fall, Stites said, the hospital had beds available.
KU has been turning down between one and six acute patients each day. If they had not been doing so, staff would be treating about 100 such patients, Stites said. Increasing COVID-19 infections could exacerbate the problem.
“We are turning down transfers, which is creating, I think, a real concern, maybe even a crisis here in our region because patients are having trouble landing into beds anywhere near their hometown,” Stites said...
‘A tipping point’: Kansas City hospitals are turning away patients due to COVID surge
Luke Nozicka
Wed, July 21, 2021, 3:31 PM·2 min read
Like other hospitals in the Kansas City region, the University of Kansas Health System is turning down transfer patients because its beds are full, setting up a potential crisis, its chief medical officer said Wednesday.
“I think we’re at a tipping point,” Steve Stites said during KU’s daily briefing. “If we don’t take it seriously, we could easily end up back where we were in November.”
The hospital is “running full steam,” like others in the metro, because of an increase in COVID-19 patients and others returning to the hospital who may have stayed away at the height of the pandemic. Last fall, Stites said, the hospital had beds available.
KU has been turning down between one and six acute patients each day. If they had not been doing so, staff would be treating about 100 such patients, Stites said. Increasing COVID-19 infections could exacerbate the problem.
“We are turning down transfers, which is creating, I think, a real concern, maybe even a crisis here in our region because patients are having trouble landing into beds anywhere near their hometown,” Stites said...