With no beds, overwhelmed U.S. hospitals ship patients to far-off cities

[Zorro]

The surge in the delta variant, combined with low vaccination rates, has pushed hospitals to the brink in many states.

MISSION, Kan. — Many overwhelmed hospitals, with no beds to offer, are putting critically ill COVID-19 patients on planes, helicopters and ambulances and sending them hundreds of miles to far-flung states for treatment.

The surge in the delta variant of the virus, combined with low vaccination rates, has pushed hospitals to the brink in many states and resulted in a desperate scramble to find beds for patients.

The issue is that large hospitals in urban areas already were running short of space and staff with non-COVID procedures like cancer biopsies and hip replacements when the summer surge started. That means they have very few free beds to offer to patients from small rural hospitals without ICUs or from medical centers in virus hotspots.

“Just imagine not having the support of your family near, to have that kind of anxiety if you have someone grow acutely ill,” said Steve Edwards, CEO of CoxHealth, whose hospital in Springfield, Missouri, is treating patients from as far away as Alabama.

https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/2021/08/18/with-no-beds-overwhelmed-us-hospitals-ship-patients-to-far-off-cities/

[stollen]

1. In southern states, specifically

Correct?

[DET]

2. Don't Send Them Here

It may sound harsh, but I hope they don’t send the purposefully unvaccinated to blue states. That would be the ultimate insult to people who have followed the rules and done their best to avoid Covid.

[live love laugh]

4. +++++💯

[Maru Kitteh]

6. Agreed. Let the willfully unvaccinated care for their own.

Take the kids, take the elderly with POS POA kids who denied them the vaccine. Take the vaccinated. Take those who were told by their docs they couldn't get the vaccine.

The willfully unvaccinated? Put them in a tent and let their fellow MAGATs tend to them. Leave the innocent health-care personnel out of it.

[smirkymonkey]

8. +1000

Agree completely.

I am beyond sick of this crap. I've had it with these assholes.

[SheltieLover]

3. Wait till they get helicopter bills.

[live love laugh]

5. Why are they in hospitals at all? That's SCIENCE.

[roamer65]

7. We don't want the willfully unvaxxed adults up here in MI.

No thanks.

We have enough of our own, sadly.