The increase in COVID-19 cases is putting a strain on Indiana hospitals.
State Health Commissioner Dr. Kris Box said Wednesday that health officials continue to monitor ICU bed and ventilator capacity, but hospitals say the biggest strain is on their frontline workforce, “which is in the ninth month now of responding to this pandemic and facing the greatest patient load yet. They are, frankly, exhausted. They’re quarantined or in a family quarantine. They’re juggling home issues just like the rest of us, like hybrid schooling, and some have even lost coworkers and family members to this disease. This all takes an incredible toll.”
Box said some hospitals have begun rescheduling elective surgeries based on staffing availability, and the state’s been getting three to five requests a day for staffing help from the healthcare reserve workforce.
In addition to record numbers of COVID-19 hospitalizations, another concern is the increase in deaths. “In October, 701 people died of COVID-19 in Indiana,” Box said. “Five hundred fifty-one of those individuals were people of the age 70 or older, but we also saw 21 deaths in individuals under the age of 50 and almost all of those occurred in the last two weeks of the month. This is a stark reminder that COVID doesn’t respect age limits and that we all need to take precautions to protect ourselves and the people that we care about.”
Meanwhile, the Indiana National Guard has been sent to 149 long-term care facilities in the state and plans to be in all 534 of them by November 16.
