'We’re overwhelmed': MN hospitals plead for public's help amid surge in hospitalizations
Minnesota health care systems, including Mayo Clinic, have a message for the public: “We’re heartbroken. We’re overwhelmed.”
This week, the CEOs of the state’s largest health providers took out a full-page ad in several major newspapers to make an appeal to the public, asking them to help reduce the burden Covid-19 is having on area hospitals.
Minnesota is now at one of its worst points of the pandemic, with nearly 90 percent of hospital ICUs across the state completely full, according to data from the Minnesota Department of Health.
“Our emergency departments are overfilled, and we have patients in every bed of our hospitals,” reads the ads. “The pandemic has strained our operations and demoralized many people on our teams. Care in our hospitals is safe but our ability to provide it is threatened.”
Mayo Clinic President and CEO Dr. Gianrico Farrugio was among the health care executives who signed the message, along with CEOs from Allina Health, CentraCare, Children’s Minnesota, Essentia Health, Fairview Health Services, HealthPartners, Hennepin Healthcare & North Memorial Health.
As we reported last week, Mayo Clinic’s Rochester campus has felt the strain of this latest wave of infections, with about 100 patients being treated there every day for Covid-19. Countywide, nearly one in four ICU beds are being used by a Covid patient, the highest level since the start of the pandemic.
“Doctors, nurses and people working in health care are doing everything they can to support the health of all Minnesotans,” Mayo wrote in a statement accompanying the ad. “And yet, every day our health care workers see avoidable illness and death as a direct result of Coivid-19. Health systems have risen to every challenge put before them, but they are overwhelmed and cannot continue to carry this burden.”
The hospital CEOs are asking the public to get vaccinated (and boosted), wear a mask and socially distance, get tested when sick, and encourage neighbors and loved ones to consider doing the same.
Mayo estimates that of the patients infected with Covid-19 who have been in the ICU over the past few weeks, the number of unvaccinated patients is five to six times higher than vaccinated patients.
Sean Baker is a Rochester journalist and the founder of Med City Beat.
