There were nine COVID-19-positive patients at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital on Thanksgiving Day, and on Friday, there were 90, according to Cottage Health president / CEO Ron Werft.
The number of new coronavirus cases, as well as the rate of test positivity (how many tests are positive) are still increasing, indicating that the current increase is far from over, he said during the Department of Public Health briefing. from Santa Barbara County on Friday.
Public health officials emphasized the importance of not meeting during the holiday season for fear that this would cause an increase in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, and a week after the beginning of the year, those fears have come true.
“During the holiday season, our numbers have skyrocketed,” said Director of Public Health Van Do-Reynoso on Friday. “I was worried. I feared that if people got together, we would have one wave over another.”
There were 178 people hospitalized with COVID-19 in the county as of Thursday, and the county reported 24 COVID-19-related deaths this week. Some of the deaths occurred in December and some occurred in early January.
Thirteen of the people who died recently from COVID-19 lived in the South Coast, 10 lived in the Santa Maria Valley and two lived in the Santa Ynez Valley.
The updated figures were not available on Friday because of a problem with the state’s reporting system, Public Health officials said.
At the beginning of the pandemic, hospitals were concerned about the scarcity of personal protective equipment and ventilators, Werft said, but these are not challenges for the current increase in patients.
The house now has 98 ventilators, 21 of which are used for patients with COVID-19, and an ample supply of PPE, Werft said.
The concerns now are about the capacity of beds in intensive care units in hospitals, where the most seriously ill patients are treated.
There was a COVID-19 isolation unit operating at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital during Thanksgiving Day, and now there are five, including two ICU units, said Werft.
One of the surgical ICU units has been converted into a unit to care for COVID-19 patients, he added, and there is an ICU designated for non-COVID-19 patients.
The country house has 45 ICU beds with staff, but a suitable team can make this number flexible to 57. There are plans that can take this number further to 70 ICU beds at Santa Bárbara Cottage Hospital and eight at Goleta Valley Cottage Hospital, according to Werft.
An ICU bed can only be used if there are enough staff to monitor the patient on it, Werft said. During the past two weeks, Cottage generally had five to eight ICU beds available, he added.
“As we look at the growing demand for our hospitals in Santa Bárbara, beds will not be the challenge, PPE and ventilators will not be the challenge,” said Werft. “The problem is the intensive care team. Although we are now with a team beyond what we would normally see, the ability to identify, recruit and expand for this type of demand is very challenging. “
While there are plans to increase it to create more capacity to treat the growing number of patients, the need for more staff continues.
“There is a limit to what we can deal with if the numbers continue to increase at this rate,” said Werft.
As hospitals across the state run out of space, Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital is increasingly receiving requests for transfers. The hospital is receiving two to four transfer requests every 24 hours, according to Werft.
To receive a transferred patient, the hospital must have sufficient capacity, operate at a higher level of care, and the other hospital must have exhausted all possible solutions, said Werft.
“We must have resources, be at a higher level of service and not compromise our ability to care for our local community,” he added, noting that only a few requests have been accepted recently.
The county panel notes that the three county hospitals are already using 11 emergency ICU beds to treat patients positive for COVID-19.
Lompoc Valley Medical Center and Marian Regional Medical Center in Santa Maria are the other hospitals in the county that treat COVID-19 patients, with the majority in Santa Barbara and Santa Maria.
LVMC CEO Steve Popkin said in a weekly update on Friday that there are 12 patients positive for COVID-19 there.
“This volume of patients in the county is putting tremendous pressure on hospitals and, particularly, on the patient care team,” he said. “The three hospital systems in Santa Bárbara County are working together and together with Santa Bárbara County and other stakeholders, and have been able to manage the situation effectively. As difficult as it is here, there are other parts of the state that are in far more dire situations. We believe that things will change soon and, until that happens, we will all do everything we can to meet the needs and expectations of our respective communities. “
Werft said Cottage Health expects to open a drive-thru vaccination facility at Goleta Valley Cottage Hospital next week for healthcare professionals and other eligible people in the first phase.
Cottage started administering vaccines the day they arrived in the county and has administered about 3,400 to employees, he said.
– Jade Martinez-Pogue, editor of the Noozhawk team, can be contacted at . (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.