Parkview Health System receives FEMA, HHS help as hospital overwhelmed with COVID patients
As COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations continue to overwhelm short-staffed hospitals in Pueblo, Parkview Health System has requested and received help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to help stabilize hospital capacity.
According to a Monday afternoon news release, a team of 15 medical professionals has been deployed from HHS' National Disaster Medical System (NDMS) to Parkview’s main hospital to care for patients in one of its medical/surgical units.
Parkview and the state's request, according to the Colorado State Joint Information Center, marks the first time Colorado has sought and received FEMA staffing assistance during the pandemic.
"Colorado requested medical staffing assistance through FEMA, who processed the request and assigned HHS to provide the supporting medical team," the joint release from Parkview and the Colorado COVID-19 Joint Information Center said.
"FEMA will reimburse HHS for 100% of the costs associated with the team’s deployment to Parkview Medical Center."
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Parkview President and CEO Leslie Barnes said in the release that the NDMS team — which consists of a physician, advanced healthcare practitioner, nurses, paramedics and a respiratory therapist along with support personnel — will allow the hospital to expand its bed capacity.
The team, which arrived at Parkview Monday, will collaborate with Parkview’s staff to provide "short-term surge support" for 14 days and arrives as Pueblo continues to battle a dramatic rise in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations in recent weeks.
According to data from the Pueblo Department of Public health and Environment, there were 985 new cases of COVID-19 reported from Oct. 21-27 in Pueblo County, which marked a 48 % increase from the prior week.
Local transmission of the virus has only gotten worse since then.
From Oct. 28 to Nov. 3, Pueblo County recorded 1,011 new cases and seven deaths, bringing the county's death total above 500 for the first time. As of Nov. 3, 504 people had died from COVID-19 in Pueblo.
According to Parkview's release, the hospital was treating 90 COVID-19 patients in-house on Nov. 8, approximately 80% of which were those who are not vaccinated.
Visiting restrictions, according to Parkview, will remain the same.
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Chieftain reporter Zach Hillstrom can be reached at zhillstrom@gannett.com or on Twitter @ZachHillstrom
This article originally appeared on The Pueblo Chieftain: FEMA to aid Parkview during COVID-19 surge
