JACKSON, Miss. (Mississippi Today) – At least 22 hospitals in Mississippi had no open intensive care unit beds last week as a surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations due to the delta variant pressing the state’s healthcare system to the brink of collapse.
The lack of ICU bed capacity at these hospitals offers a snapshot view of the strain all healthcare providers in Mississippi are seeing across all departments. It is only a limited view, however, as many other hospitals were near capacity on paper but had no ability to staff ICU beds.
“The real focus has been on trying to get staffing so we can keep people in hospitals and utilize those beds to release the pressure on the system,” State Epidemiologist Dr. Paul Byers said during a press conference on Wednesday.
More than 2,000 medical professionals have left the field in Mississippi over the past year, and MEMA is deploying over 1,100 healthcare workers to 61 hospitals in the coming weeks to help alleviate the staffing strain.
As of Wednesday morning, only 15 ICU beds were available across the state. There were also 63 patients waiting for an ICU bed — 31 of them being COVID-19 patients. At the same time, more than 400 of the contract workers had been deployed to 11 of the 61 hospitals that submitted staffing requests to MEMA. This included 347 nurses, 11 nurse practitioners and 78 respiratory technicians.
Below is a list of the hospitals that reported having fewer than one open ICU bed between Aug. 13 and Aug. 19 to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. During that period, nearly 94% of ICU beds in the state were full, with nearly 64% of them being occupied by COVID-19 patients.
Adams County
- Merit Health Natchez
Alcorn County
- Magnolia Regional Health Center
Bolivar County
- Bolivar Medical Center
Clay County
- North Mississippi Medical Center – West Point
DeSoto County
- Methodist Healthcare – Olive Branch Hospital
Forrest County
- Forrest General Hospital
- Merit Health Wesley
George County
- George Regional Health System
Grenada County
- University of Mississippi Medical Center – Grenada
Harrison County
- Memorial Hospital at Gulfport
- Merit Health Biloxi
Jackson County
- Singing River Health System
Jones County
- South Central Regional Medical Center
Lincoln County
- King’s Daughters Medical Center – Brookhaven
Madison County
- Merit Health Madison
Okitbbeha County
- Och Regional Medical Center
Pearl River County
- Highland Community Hospital
Pike County
- Southwest Mississippi Regional Medical Center
Warren County
- Merit Health River Region
- KPC Promise Hospital of Vicksburg
Washington County
- Delta Regional Medical Center – Greenville
Wayne County
- Wayne General Hospital