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COVID patients overwhelm Colorado hospitals: Shooting

Nurse Brooke Schroeder of Longmont United Hospital holds a sign in support of nurses on December 2, 2021. Nurses say the hospital is seriously understaffed and that they are trying to form a union.

Hart Van Denburg / CPR News


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Nurse Brooke Schroeder of Longmont United Hospital holds a sign in support of nurses on December 2, 2021. Nurses say the hospital is seriously understaffed and that they are trying to form a union.

Hart Van Denburg / CPR News

Harold Burch lives in a house with breathtaking views in Paonia, a rural area on Colorado’s Western Slope. But it’s little consolation for 60-year-old Burch, who is facing a host of health problems during the pandemic.

“It was a real car race,” said Burch. “It’s been through a lot of ups and downs and lately it’s been mostly just downers.”

Burch has battled osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis and has undergone two major intestinal surgeries. One professional he met left her practice last year. Another person will not accept his insurance. Then, on November 1, he started having severe stomach pain.

“When we talked about terrible problems, I couldn’t leave the house,” he said. He said he hadn’t eaten anything substantial for three weeks.

Burch had to wait this long to see a primary care physician. He said the doctor told him, “‘If things go differently, I’d tell you to go to the hospital and get diagnosed, run some tests and see what’s going on with you.” But he said, “as of today, the Delta County hospital is clearly full. There are no beds left.”

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The COVID variant delta overwhelmed the Colorado county of the same name. Hospitals on the Western Slope have been closed for weeks, and the statewide picture is similarly bleak. As of Monday, 1,294 patients have been hospitalized with COVID-19, according to state figures coronavirus website. Half of the state’s hospitals said they expect staffing shortages by mid-December; more than a third of them predicted a bed shortage in the ICU at the same time.

And behind those numbers, patients – and healthcare workers – are feeling the impact.

Burch’s doctor told him he could expect to wait hours in the emergency room, perhaps with people with the flu or COVID-19 symptoms. So Burch stayed at home.

He is fully vaccinated. But only 57% of people in Delta County have at least one dose of vaccine. And 84% of COVID-19 patients hospitalized in Colorado are not vaccinated.

“It’s really frustrating because I did the right thing and like a lot of other people did, and we’re like being told, ‘unless you have a really serious problem, like a heart attack, a sudden heart attack. stroke or things like that, we really don’t have time to mess with you,” Burch said.

Diann Cullen, a 72-year-old retiree from Broomfield, Colorado, whose doctor told her her hernia surgery will have to be postponed for weeks feels the same way. She said her reaction was: “Extremely frustrated, really angry… He bluntly told me we couldn’t even do it because of so many COVID patients.”

A system in crisis

Burch’s situation was not uncommon this fall, as the state faced its second-worst COVID-19 spike in hospitalizations and deaths. Hospitals are under tremendous pressure, and that means delays and variation from routine care, as providers are constrained to do more with less.

“Hospitals across Colorado are in critical condition. We’ve been at 90% capacity in ICUs and acute care beds for weeks now. And unfortunately, that’s unlikely to be the case. cease in the near future”. Cara Welch, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Hospital Association said.

Longmont High School teacher and coach Jeff Kloster holds a sign in support of Longmont United Hospital nurses on December 2, 2021, outside the hospital. His wife, Kris, a nurse there, was one of the speakers at the protest.

Hart Van Denburg / CPR News


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Longmont High School teacher and coach Jeff Kloster holds a sign in support of Longmont United Hospital nurses on December 2, 2021, outside the hospital. His wife, Kris, a nurse there, was one of the speakers at the protest.

Hart Van Denburg / CPR News

Robin Wittenstein, CEO of Denver Health, which runs one of the largest hospitals and clinics in the state, said what is pushing hospitals into crisis is dealing with a surge in COVID patients besides other patients had delayed care, all understaffed. systems.

“They come to the hospital sicker than ever,” says Wittenstein. And they come in greater numbers than we’ve ever seen before,” Wittenstein said. “Our system is on the verge of collapse.”

At the UCHealth academic medical center, ICU’s Dr. Abbey Lara said the preference of unvaccinated patients means patients have to wait longer or they don’t receive the diagnostic tests they need. . In the worst case scenario, “patients who might have survived something had their lives cut short because they couldn’t access care,” she said.

And when too many patients are treated by too few staff, Lara says, that makes it difficult for medical staff.

“I’m just worried that there won’t be just a lot of sales in the near future,” Lara said. “But I think access to healthcare will get even worse in the future.”

Nurse in accident

The situation is causing many nurses to speak out, like at an event earlier this month held across the street from Longmont United Hospital, in Longmont, Colorado, about 50 miles north of Denver.

Critical care nurse Stephanie Chrisley told a crowd that typically a registered nurse would care for two patients on ventilators, sedation, critical care.

“And in the last few weeks we have regularly had RNs take three, and sometimes four patients at a time,” she said, prompting a boo from the crowd.

It’s not safe, she said, and now nurses are finding ways to unite. Longmont United says it is focused on the well-being of its patients and staff and that its top priority is high-quality care.

Chrisley, a mother of two, says nurses need more hands.

Chrisley says: “Recently, I’ve been in a state of chronic stress because of the overwhelming guilt I feel for making sure my patients get the care they need. Somehow, though, I’m still take care of yourself and your family”.

Kris Kloster has been a nurse for 32 years, most of which was in the ICU. So she saw layoffs and layoffs even before the pandemic hit. Currently, ICU nurses are dealing with colleagues quitting their jobs, limiting visitors, worrying about the spread of the virus, anger from some patients who do not believe they have COVID-19.

At the same time, they have to deal with suffering and death. She said it was “soulless”. “It was the hardest job I’ve ever had.”

Kloster spoke out in the hope that the people of Colorado would understand the physical, emotional and psychological harm to nurses.

“This kind of HR, this kind of stress is not sustainable,” says Kloster. “And something has to change.”

Longmont United Hospital nurse Kris Kloster speaks to nurses and other advocates on December 2, 2021, outside the hospital. They say the hospital is seriously understaffed, their workload is unsustainable and the hospital is trying to prevent them from forming a union.

Hart Van Denburg / CPR News


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Hart Van Denburg / CPR News


Longmont United Hospital nurse Kris Kloster speaks to nurses and other advocates on December 2, 2021, outside the hospital. They say the hospital is seriously understaffed, their workload is unsustainable and the hospital is trying to prevent them from forming a union.

Hart Van Denburg / CPR News

She said that nearly a third of the hospital’s registered nurse staff have left since the beginning of July and many have yet to be replaced.

Stressed nurses and doctors feel a lot when they feel powerless to see what they see as the morally right course of action in treating patients.

Dr. Barbara Statland, a hospital physician at Denver Health, says there’s a term for that, “moral distress”. The tension comes “because you can’t do what you feel is ethically right. And I would say health care workers have had a hard time with this.”

‘They saved my life’

Despite the stress and suffering, many frontline providers are still there, continuing to care for patients every day. That made all the difference for at least one COVID-19 patient who said he could get care – in time.

Rob Blessin from Fort Collins contracted the virus this fall and spent 30 days in the ICU with pneumonia at Northern Colorado Medical Center in Greeley. The 58-year-old describes the efforts of his doctors and nurses as heroic, some working nine or 10 days straight, many working overtime.

“They saved my life. I’m grateful for everything they’ve done,”

Blessin said as more and more coronavirus patients were admitted to the hospital, staff members struggled to keep up. “There were a lot of people there and very few staff,” he said.

Blessin says he went to the hospital because he was influenced by misinformation on the internet and wasn’t vaccinated. It was a decision he regretted.

“I guess my recommendation would be to get the attention of vaxxed, you know, even if you’re totally against it. Don’t fall for the hype on the internet,” Blessin said.

After his experience of being hospitalized for a month due to coronavirus, and having talked to his doctors there, he now plans to get vaccinated.

This story was produced in partnership with KHN and Colorado Public Radio.

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