By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
HaysMed is full and turning transfers from rural hospitals away, the hospital's medical director said Wednesday morning.
The hospital's census for COVID patients has been in the mid-30s for the past month, which is about half of the hospital's staffed beds, Dr. Heather Harris, HaysMed medical director, said during a University of Kansas Health System press conference on Wednesday.
The average age of COVID patients admitted to HaysMed is 76, which is trending younger, Harris said. The average length of stay is 10 days, which is considered a long stay.
Those who are going home can have long recoveries, coming home weak or on oxygen.
HaysMed receives referrals from 40 counties in Kansas.
The hospital has closed to transfers only twice in the last 14 years. In the month of November, HaysMed denied 103 transfers from other hospitals.
Harris said the closure has affected the hospital's ability to care for patients. HaysMed has always remained open for acute heart attack and stroke patients. However, when it closes for transfers, it stops accepting all other patients outside Ellis County.
"I think some of the rural areas felt like they were protected due to their geography from the virus," Harris said. "Clearly, that is not the case."
Dr. David Wild, vice president of performance improvement at the health system, said the issue with transfers is happening across the state, and it is meaning patients are waiting longer and transported farther for care.
"There is no doubt that there is an impact on patients across the community with diseases other than COVID," he said.
A couple of western Kansas counties still don't have mask mandates. Those counties have accounted for 30 of HaysMed's inpatients.
"I think the rural folks need to be cautious as well," Harris said. "Wear masks, try to social distance and don't gather in big groups and try to protect yourself so you don't get sick."
Harris said the continuing crisis has been difficult on local caregivers.
"People are dying of this illness," she said. "I see that being a strain for both the nursing staff and the providers. When you care for people for 10 plus days and the patients can't have family in the hospital, you become connected to those folks.
"We are in the business of healing people. I think that is a strain too. People are getting weary. People are strained and stressed and sad."
Kevin Myers, HaysMed infection prevention director, said all of the PPE caregivers have to wear makes it difficult to provide the human touch they are used to offering, which is a struggle for both patients and caregivers.
Clinic providers are also seeing a surge in COVID patients.
Ellis County had a 27 percent to 30 percent positive rate through November. Sixty to 100 people are being tested every day.
Although COVID numbers were lower Monday, Harris said that is only the result of testing being lower over the Thanksgiving weekend. She anticipated numbers will be up Wednesday and Friday and into the next week.
Myers said the upcoming cold and flu season will likely make caring for the community even more difficult, a factor that keeps him up at night.
Over half of the people reporting as COVID positive are unsure from whom they contracted the virus, Harris said.
"I ask the question, 'Have you been around someone?' but I don't know the question is all that important anymore at this point," she said, "because lots of people are just shocked because they didn't know they were around anyone who had been sick.
"I think you have to be careful in all settings now."
Myers said a pocket of people still don't want to believe COVID-19 is real.
"When it finally hits the home front, they have a lot of questions, " he said. "That is why it is important for us to be there."
Myers said he is still taking calls to answer questions that he thought would be common knowledge by now.
"It is like starting over on Day One with some people, but it is totally OK," he said. "I am here to help people get back up to speed because they have been suppressing it or denying it for so long."