Wednesday was the slowest day of the week in St. Cloud Hospital’s emergency room — only 11 people were in the waiting room at noon while 38 patients filled every available treatment bay.
Minnesota’s busiest hospital — by occupancy rate — has been at the epicenter of the state’s COVID-19 wave for three months, treating an escalating number of infected patients while seeing no slowdown in everyday emergencies. The pressure culminated last week with Minnesota’s announcement that 22 federal emergency health care workers would shore up staffing in St. Cloud or other hospitals in the CentraCare system this week.
“COVID just overwhelms the system,” said Dr. Andrew Winter, an ER physician who zips from traumas to infections to mental health crises. “No matter how big you build it, there are still more patients than you can take care of.”
Winter’s first ER patient Wednesday afternoon was a homeless man experiencing swelling on a leg marked with open sores and spider bites.
“It’s hot; does it feel hot to you?” Winter said.
“Yeah, it burns,” replied Bobby Stewart, 46.
Winter reviewed the man’s medication and health history and told him to be patient.
“We’re going to get some lab work, we’ll get an ultrasound of this leg, we’ll figure this out, OK?”
A surge of COVID and non-COVID patients has differentiated the latest hospital crunch in Minnesota from earlier pandemic waves. CentraCare and other hospital systems have pushed back surgeries that can be delayed, but inpatient admissions are rising, possibly because people put off needed care earlier in the pandemic.
Minnesota has tallied 55 days since May 2020 when hospitalizations exceeded 8,000, a benchmark for overcrowding — and 28 were in the last two months. The 8,220 hospitalizations on Wednesday included 1,382 COVID-19 patients.
St. Cloud has averaged 99% occupancy of its 390 adult inpatient beds since July, according to federal hospital data, making it the busiest during that period in Minnesota. In the week beginning Nov. 5, it was one of four to report almost 100% occupancy along with CentraCare’s Monticello hospital and HealthPartners’ Regions Hospital in St. Paul and Methodist Hospital in St. Louis Park.