COVID-Related Nurse Shortage Hitting Hospitals

Facing a surge of new COVID-19 patients in Ohio hospitals, medical authorities are seeing another dilemma develop: a shortage of available nurses to care for those patients.

Gov. Mike DeWine, R- Ohio, said “a shocking number” of nurses are off the job because they have also contracted the coronavirus.

At DeWine’s briefing Monday broadcast statewide, Dr. Robert Wyllie of the Cleveland Clinic said 970 caregivers in the Cleveland Clinic hospital network are out with the virus. He said the nurses did not contract the virus at work. In all likelihood, Wyllie said, it was picked up somewhere in the community. According to the latest information from the Ohio Department of Health, 282 new patients with COVID-19 were admitted into a hospital somewhere in Ohio within the last 24 hours. That’s well above the 21 day average of 253.

As a result of the patient surge, hospital administrators say they have moved patients around to different facilities to take advantage of available beds. Also, some hospitals have begun delaying non-critical surgeries. “The growth is exponential. At this point it is not that we are planning for the surge. It is already here,” said Dr. Richard Lofgren, University of Cincinnati Health.

DeWine and multiple doctors attending the briefing via Zoom on-line all urged Ohioans not to attend large gatherings for Thanksgiving. “We have the ability here to change the future. I’m a big fan of the ‘Back To The Future’ movies. We can have an alternative future. We can change it,” DeWine said.

If there is any spread from the holiday weekend, the doctors said it would begin to show up with yet another increase in cases in about two weeks. The Health Department reported a record-high 11,885 new cases within the last 24 hours. DeWine explained, though, that the number was a result of an additional two days of cases that had been backlogged in the confirmation process finally being reported to the Ohio Department of Health.

Cox Media Group