ICU Beds Limited As Okla. Hospitals Brace For Impact from COVID Variant

Major hospital systems in Oklahoma are managing limited space in emergency departments as they cope with a drop in staffing over the past year and a contagious new variant of COVID-19.

In an August survey by the Oklahoma Hospital Association, medical systems across Oklahoma reported losing 200 hospital beds due to a loss of staffing since January.

LaWanna Halstead, the OHA vice president, said the pandemic has “wreaked havoc” on hospital staffing in the past year.

“Even if we didn’t have this pandemic, (we) would probably be pretty stretched,” she said. “We’ve just lost so many health care providers.” 

Integris Health, Mercy Hospital, OU Health, and SSM St. Anthony all told News 9 they are either currently at capacity in their intensive care units, or are regularly running out of beds.

On Monday morning, a Mercy Hospital spokesperson said 12 patients were waiting for an ICU bed to open up.

Halstead said hospitals have to add on tasks to the staff available to them.

“They may be changing their staffing model whereas ideally you would have one nurse taking care of one ICU patient, but they may be going to two or three (patients),” Halstead said.

Dr. Cameron Mantor, chief medical officer at OU Health, said the system “absolutely” decreased its number of available beds in 2021. He said he did not know exactly how many beds have become unstaffed.

“We have beds that are unfilled because we don’t have med surg nurses, we don’t have ICU nurses, and we don’t have respiratory therapists that we’ve got to have to utilize all of our facilities. And we don’t have that. We’re struggling significantly because of that,” Mantor said.

The large majority of patients requiring hospitalization for COVID-19 are not vaccinated. 

According to the Oklahoma State Department of Health, 85% of COVID patients needing hospital treatment between Dec. 12 to 18 had not received the vaccine. Click here for more information on vaccines from OSDH.