COVID causes Coast hospital staffing shortages as hospitalizations surge in 5th wave

The omicron surge across the Mississippi Gulf Coast has triggered additional hospital staff shortages.

Spokesmen for Singing River Health System and Memorial at Gulfport, two of the Coast’s top health systems, said they’re experiencing short-term staff absences as the highly transmissible COVID-19 variant has increased statewide positivity rates significantly over the past two weeks.

The worker shortages come as the area has been hemorrhaging nurses, leaving for lucrative travel contracts or from pandemic fatigue.

“We’ve registered over 31,000 cases within a week. But fortunately we haven’t seen the same proportion of deaths,” State Medical Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs said during a Thursday COVID update on Twitter.

“Although it does cause a less-severe illness, because of the remarkable number of cases we have, we are seeing a massive increase in the number of new hospitalizations, putting an increasing strain upon our health-care system and overloading our ICU systems.”

Mississippi saw it’s highest case counts of the pandemic over the past week and a half, consistently recording 7,000 to 8,000 new cases per day. The state broke its record for single-day positive results on Friday, reporting 9,300 new cases.

On Aug. 20, the Mississippi State Department of Health reported 5,048 new coronavirus cases, the previous state record before the omicron strain.

The omicron variant now accounts for all of the virus cases in Mississippi, surpassing the delta strain in over just a few weeks and rendering some COVID treatments ineffective.

Health officials are again pushing for residents to get vaccinated and receive their booster shot in order to avoid pileups in hospitals at a time when the health-care systems are already in crisis.

“The trajectory of omicron cases now looks like a pattern of a rapid rise, then a rapid fall, said Dr. LouAnn Woodward, vice chancellor for health affairs and dean of the University of Mississippi Medical Center, during a press conference this week.

“But for now, “the only thing that will really help is to flatten the curve of people who are hospitalized.”

The majority of deaths are still occurring in unvaccinated Mississippians, Dobbs said.

“We do know that vaccines are still our best bet. And we know especially with omicron that you really need to be boosted. You need that third dose to get the added effects to get that full protection,” said Dobbs in his Twitter update.

Health-care worker absences mount

Singing River has about 100 staff members out due to COVID, about 2% of its workforce.

A report issued a week ago showed the three-hospital system was 75% full.

Now, the facilities are at almost 100% capacity, according to Chief Nursing Officer Susan Russell, as a result of staffing shortages, call-outs due to COVID infections, and the recent increase in COVID hospitalizations.

Memorial said it could not provide exact figures for staff absences due to COVID infection, but said in a statement, “COVID-19 has impacted every facility’s ability to staff.”

Coast hospitals aren’t the only health systems in the state that are struggling with staff absences due to COVID infection. During a press conference this week, staff at the University of Mississippi Medical Center said they have “higher numbers of employees who are at home recovering from the virus or under quarantine.”

“It’s been 175 a day at some points,” said Dr. Alan Jones, vice chancellor for clinical affairs and the Medical Center’s clinical COVID-19 response leader of the 10,000-employee medical center.

“Of that number, today there are 80-90 front-line caregivers out on isolation alone.”

Hospitalizations continue to surge

Although the severity of illness from COVID now is less with omicron than with delta or the original strain, turnover for hospitalized patients is quicker, and there’s more demand for beds in the medical-surgical floors, said UMMC staff.

As of Monday, Singing River had 55 patients who were hospitalized with the virus, 11 in ICU with three on a ventilator. By Wednesday, there were 68 COVID patients, and on Thursday the number was 75.

There are 14 patients in the ICU and seven on ventilators. Of those, 70% are unvaccinated or partially vaccinated.

The hospitalizations came fast. On Jan. 4, the number of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 was just 18.

Memorial Hospital had 51 people hospitalized on Wednesday, up 22 COVID patients from a week earlier, when 29 were hospitalized.

Merit Health Biloxi said its hospitalizations have remained stable. The hospital currently has seven COVID patients.

“Capacity can change throughout the day based on patient admissions, discharges, and staffing,” spokesperson Amy Bowman said.

This article is supported by the Journalism and Public Information Fund, a fund of the Gulf Coast Community Foundation.