Chief medical officers of several hospitals in the Greater Kansas City area today warned the public about an increase in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations here.
It is like a tornado warning for COVID, according to Dr. Steve Stites, chief medical officer of the University of Kansas Health System.
“As the weather got cold, masks came off,” Dr. Stites said. “We still have a lot of unvaccinated folks. We set ourselves up for danger. And that danger is real, it’s present and it’s at our doorstep. This is a warning to all of you. We are in trouble.”
KU Health System currently has 45 active COVID infections, and two weeks ago, it had 31 COVID active patients. One month ago there were 18 active COVID patients, said Dr. Dana Hawkinson, medical director of infection prevent and control at KU Health System. There were 13 patients in the intensive care unit, and nine on ventilators.
“The majority of the people in the hospital are unvaccinated,” Dr. Hawkinson said.
Doctors from other area hospitals also reported COVID numbers trending up.
Children’s Mercy Hospital reported a dramatic increase in COVID cases in the past few weeks for outpatients and inpatients, according to Dr. Jennifer Watts, chief emergency management medical officer at Children’s Mercy. Testing, including their clinics, showed COVID numbers increasing from 200 two weeks ago to 400. The hospital has 14 inpatients with COVID, including three in the intensive care unit.
HCA Midwest Health reported 151 COVID patients in its several hospitals in the Kansas City area this morning. There were 30 COVID patients in the ICU and 12 on ventilators. Only three of the 30 were vaccinated, according to hospital officials.
“We are experiencing quite a bit of stress in the system, as all the hospitals are,” said Dr. Kim Megow, chief medical officer at HCA Midwest Health.
She reported 43 patients waiting in emergency rooms for inpatient beds this morning. She also said the system’s death rates are over 11 percent for COVID patients. Volume more than tripled in the last three weeks, she added.
Doctors from Advent Health, HCA Midwest Health, Liberty Hospital, Lawrence Memorial Hospital, North Kansas City Hospital, University Health, Olathe Health and the Kansas City VA Hospital were all in agreement about increasing numbers of COVID cases and hospitalizations.
Increasing numbers of cases is resulting in staff members who are overworked and tired, according to the doctors.
“We are struggling with our staff – they are tired, they are overworked, and we continue to ask them to do more and more with these volumes,” Dr. Elizabeth Long, chief medical officer at Olathe Health, said. She said this is different this year versus last year because the staff has been fighting this fight for so long and are really worn out. “We all want to be done with this. But we’re not and we’re in a dire situation.”
Some hospitals are preparing to cancel surgeries, or have already started canceling surgeries, because of the increased COVID numbers and resulting staff shortages, according to the doctors. They are concerned that there may not be enough bed space for the regular cases they handle, such as heart attack and stroke victims, or car accident victims. Some also are turning down transfer cases from other hospitals.
The doctors also are anticipating the arrival of the Omicron variant, which has already been identified in Kansas in a case in Franklin County, which is next to Johnson County. The current surge in COVID cases here is due to the Delta variant, but Omicron is known to spread quickly, according to the doctors.
The Northland is also seeing a surge in COVID patients, said Dr. Raghu Adiga, chief medical officer of Liberty Hospital. He reported 33 COVID inpatients, with 29 active, five in the ICU and three on ventilators. Nearly 90 percent of the COVID inpatients are unvaccinated. In the past two weeks, 100 percent of those on ventilators were unvaccinated, he said.
They have not canceled routine care yet, but the staff is tired and overworked, he added.
“We just want people to help us take better care of them,” he said.
At University Health, Dr. Mark Steele, executive chief clinical officer, said there were 62 COVID patients in the hospital, which is nearly 20 percent of the total bed capacity. They had 46 active and 16 recovering patients, with 14 in the ICU and six on ventilators. Ninety percent of the patients were unvaccinated, he said.
He also said they had nine COVID deaths so far this month. They also have seven patients awaiting a bed today.
It is heartbreaking to see people dying from COVID, he said.
“We know these are largely preventable deaths,” Dr. Steele said, adding it was mind-boggling more people are not taking the vaccine.
The VA hospital reported 17 inpatients with active COVID, including five in the ICU. All but one were unvaccinated. Last week, they lost three veterans to COVID, and all three were unvaccinated, he said. Numbers more than doubled since last week and more than tripled since last month.
Dr. Hawkinson urged people to avoid high-risk situations, use masking, distancing and hygiene, and get their vaccinations, including the booster shot.
Dr. Stites said while everyone wants to let their guard down and have fun, this is not the time and place.
The best gift to give someone right now is to respect and follow the rules of infection control, he said. “You want them to be here next holiday season.”
“This is not the time to quit, not the time to stop,” Dr. Stites said.
To see more of the doctors’ comments, the video is online at https://www.facebook.com/kuhospital/videos/633246338092745.