Midlands hospital closes surgery center, diverts nurses to ICU amid record COVID surge
Lexington Medical Center, which reported a record-high number of COVID-19 patients this week, has temporarily closed its outpatient surgery center in Irmo and sent some of its nurses to care for patients in the hospital’s overwhelmed intensive care unit, hospital officials said.
Patients who had been scheduled for surgeries in Irmo will have their procedures performed at the outpatient surgery center in Lexington, spokesman Jennifer Wilson said.
The West Columbia hospital, which was at 92% capacity Friday, has postponed many, but not all of its elective inpatient surgeries to free up beds for use by coronavirus patients, she said.
The number of Lexington Medical Center patients with COVID-19 has spiked in recent weeks as the highly contagious delta variant, which now makes up 98% of the state’s coronavirus cases, rips through South Carolina’s large unvaccinated population.
The hospital reached 175 COVID-19 inpatients earlier in the week — more than at any point during the pandemic — and currently has 170 coronavirus patients, 31% of whom are in the ICU, Wilson said.
The vast majority of those patients, or 86%, are not fully vaccinated, she said. Roughly 77% of all patients hospitalized with COVID-19 statewide in July were not fully vaccinated, according to state health officials.
COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths in South Carolina have exploded since the beginning of July, reaching levels not seen since the winter surge.
The state Department of Health and Environmental Control Friday reported more than 5,000 cases, the most since January, along with 31 virus deaths. Statewide COVID-19 hospitalizations have climbed from just over 100 in early July to nearly 2,000 in a matter of weeks.
Lawmakers and state health officials continue to promote vaccination as the best means of tamping down on the surge, but vaccine uptake in South Carolina remains behind much of the country.
As of Friday, just 46.2% of South Carolinians age 12 and older were fully vaccinated and 54.7% had gotten at least one shot, according to DHEC data.
About three-quarters of Lexington Medical Center staff are vaccinated, but as cases in the community continue to rise the hospital is weighing whether to mandate vaccines for employees, Wilson said.
“Vaccination is important to help protect our friends, families and neighbors from the virus,” she said. “COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective and, when combined with masking and social distancing, can save lives. “
