Bangor hospital sets COVID-19 inpatient record for 2nd week as Maine hits highest ICU levels yet
Sep. 23—Demand for COVID-19 care at eastern Maine's largest hospital hit its highest level yet as the state set records for coronavirus hospitalizations and ICU patients.
Inpatient counts climbed higher and the state's other major hospitals, with Maine Medical Center in Portland seeing its busiest week since late January.
Eastern Maine Medical Center, which serves as the major treatment center for the northern and eastern half of the state, treated 59 COVID-19 inpatients last Saturday, a record. It was the hospital's busiest week ever for COVID-19 with an average of 54.6 inpatients treated each day for the week ending Thursday, the most ever seen at any Maine hospital. The previous record of 51.9 — also at EMMC — was set the week of New Year's, at the height of the winter surge.
Northern Light Healthcare, EMMC's parent entity, also had a record week across its 10-hospital network, which is concentrated in eastern Maine, with many smaller hospitals caring for several COVID-19 patients at once as the more contagious delta variant continues to surge across the state.
"EMMC is still quite full, not just with COVID patients but also with other individuals," said Dr. James Jarvis, senior vice president at EMMC and Northern Light's physician incident commander. "That's always our concern that if any of our smaller Critical Access Hospitals had a need to send a patient for a higher level of card, would we continue to have the space for that, and that continues to be a concern of ours."
Jarvis said EMMC has avoided postponing urgent surgeries, though it has delayed some scheduled surgeries that were likely to tie up intensive care beds but didn't need to take place immediately.
He said the majority of hospitalized COVID-19 patients were unvaccinated, as were 14 of the 15 in EMMC's intensive care unit. MaineHealth, the state's largest hospital network, reported that only 2 of the 25 ICU patients in its system Thursday were fully vaccinated.
Statewide, Maine set a record for both COVID-19 hospitalizations and ICU counts Wednesday, at 226 and 88 respectively. Both numbers ticked down slightly Thursday to 221 and 83, but both numbers are still higher than the worst of the winter surge.
Most major hospitals in southern, central and midcoast Maine recorded greater burdens this week than last, though none have soared as high as EMMC's.
The state's largest hospital, Maine Medical Center in Portland, had an average of 34.7 COVID-19 inpatients treated on a given day for the week ending Thursday, up last week's 28.3 but still shy of the peak of 40.9 in mid-January. Portland's Mercy Hospital also saw an increase from 6.4 to 7.3 per day.
MaineGeneral in Augusta's increase was from 9.7 to 12.7 COVID-19 inpatients a day, while at Southern Maine Health Care Medical Center in Biddeford it was 11.1 to 12.
Clinicians have said the geography of the hospitalizations is generally mirroring vaccination levels, and that hospitals are especially full because they are unable to transfer patients to rehabilitation or long-term care facilities, which themselves have faced closures and staffing issues.
Hospitalizations are a lagging indicator in that they typically occur one to three weeks after a person is exposed to the disease, They can end in three ways: recovery, death, or transfer to another facility.
The Press Herald compiles data received directly from the hospitals and hospital networks. The data does not include outpatients or inpatients suspected of having the virus but who were never tested.
