With the rising covid cases in all the states of the US, doctors and nurses have had their hands full for the past couple of weeks. Ambulance drivers and technicians are also constantly worked up and are driving patients from one hospital to another as there is a shortage of beds in many of the health care clinics.
Shortage Of Hospital Beds Leads To More Patient Transfers
Similar was the case at Gunnison hospital in Colorado wherein a patient who is 78 years old had to be transported to a hospital in Montrose which is 65 miles away. The patient was experiencing atrial fibrillation which is not a life-threatening issue. However, the patient had previous issues with heart and a stroke as well so this could be a dangerous situation.
Annie Grace Haddorff who was the medical technician helped the patient be loaded into the ambulance who was on the gurney the whole time. Alec Newby was the paramedic who got in at the back of the ambulance with the patient and put on the blood pressure and oxygen meter over the patient for constant monitoring.
The ambulance took Highway 50 and reached Montrose in 1 hour and 15 minutes wherein the ambulance was given way by the cars on the highway helping them reach there quickly. Since the journey was during night time there wasn’t much traffic and it was easy to cross the distance at such short period of time. The patient was stable all the way till Montrose and has been admitted to the hospital.
Since the past few years, such interfacility transports (IFT) of patients from one hospital to another have been quite common, however during the pandemic, this increased on a large scale as there were shortages of beds in ICU for critical patients. Few of the ambulance drivers stated that they are now required to drive 3 to 4 hours to transport just one patient and many times come back without anyone which is a loss of time.
There are only 6 ambulances available for an emergency with Gunnison Valley Health Paramedics and they fear due to such long transport they might not be able to help the people within the county in times of emergency. C J Malcolm who is the chief of emergency services stated that earlier ambulances were also used for 911 dispatches however this is not possible during the covid times as most of them are on a long trip.
In the period of 2019 to 2020, there were 166 IFT`s wherein the drivers drove for 40,000 miles however in the pandemic which is from 2020 to 2021 the drivers had 260 IFT`s and drove for 70,000 miles which are 50% increase in working hours and the number of ambulances is still the same.
Malcolm stated that if there are 2 or 3 ambulances on IFT`s then the county is at high risk as they get a minimum of 2 to 3 calls from 911 for emergency help and lately they are not able to fulfill all the requests.
Crew members who drive the ambulance are constantly exhausted however are still continuing to do work as they know they are the backbone of this county with doctors and nurses. Malcolm stated that if there is an increase in cases due to Omicron this would become a larger issue as 3 to 4 ambulances will have to transfer patients due to the low availability of beds.
The federal government has heard the plea and stated that they will be arranging more ambulances who can respond to 911 calls and make sure that all the requests are taken care of.
