How is Covid-19 impacting our hospitals?
Intensive care units are designed with patients and nurses in close quarters so that nurses can easily get to the patients they’re treating. This means that Covid and non-Covid patients must be separated. Because there is currently such a high volume of Covid patients needing care, ICUs are often converted into Covid units. But this can affect other patients too.
Other patients, such as those needing surgeries, can no longer utilize the ICU for recovery – so their procedures often end up being cancelled. Some hospitals have enough resources to split up the ICU into Covid and non-Covid units. However, creating space to treat Covid-19 patients will result in a limited number of rooms for patients dealing with other potentially life-threatening diseases.
There are also staffing issues that come along with this. Nurses that treat Covid patients cannot be the same ones that treat non-Covid patients. The high pressure that comes with the job of being an ICU nurse has proved to be too much for many medical professionals. There’s always been a nursing shortage in the US healthcare system, but now more than ever, nurses are opting out of hospital jobs to go into less taxing positions, such as in home or travel health.
Resources are tight all-around. If we look at the space and staff our hospitals are lacking, the situation seems dire.
But there is a solution.
According to data from the OSF Healthcare Ministry, out of the Covid-19 patients they had hospitalized, 83% of those patients were unvaccinated. Out of the patients that were in the ICU, 94% were unvaccinated. And 100% of the patients that needed to be on ventilators were unvaccinated.
Vaccination works. Getting vaccinated strongly reduces someone’s chance of ending up in the hospital. It’s the only clear method we have of easing the burden on hospitals and making space for other patients in the ICU.
At Mazik Global, we are committed to doing our part in the fight against Covid-19 by helping businesses and healthcare providers accelerate the distribution of vaccinations. Learn more about our vaccine management solution or explore our other Covid-19 solutions today.
