Ahmed Aboulenein

WASHINGTON (Reuters), a rise in COVID-19-related cases in hospitals across America is forcing them to postpone elective procedures to save staff and beds.

Administrators claim that hospital staff shortages are now worsened by doctors isolating and quarantining patients who have become infected.

According to Reuters, nearly 50 percent of U.S. hospitals including Maryland, Virginia and Ohio announced that elective procedures would be delayed. The review also found that at least three other states, New York and Illinois, had implemented state-wide delays or recommended them.

According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, most of the hospitals that are suspending surgery have experienced a spike or peak in COVID-19 hospitalizations rates between December and January.

Reuters also reported that Omicron’s surge caused the National Institutes of Health in America to put off elective procedures at the country’s biggest hospital devoted solely to clinical research.

In some cases, waiting for elective procedures can cause a backlog that could cost hospitals millions and lead to death or serious illness.

Cynthia Cox is vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation. She said that tens of thousands more people died of non-COVID causes than usual during the pandemic. Some of these deaths were believed to have been due to delaying care.

    “It’s often cancer surgeries or other kinds of care that still needs to happen in a very timely manner for people’s safety and health,” said Cox.  

After a surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations in Columbus, Ohio State University Wexner medical center, which has over 2,200 beds in multiple hospitals in Columbus, will be tabling non-urgent elective surgery that requires an overnight stay. Dr. Timothy Pawlik is the chair of Department of Surgery.

Recent CDC data show that the seven-day mean of new hospital admissions to Ohio each day is at an all-time record.

    Johns Hopkins had to move one of its hospitals, the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, into crisis protocols; delaying elective surgeries and redirecting staff, spokesperson Danny Jacobs said.

    The Baltimore hospital saw a 360% increase in patients hospitalized with COVID-19 in December, the highest it has experienced since the start of the pandemic, he said.

    The Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center, which suspended elective surgeries in its downtown Richmond, Virginia hospital, said it did so due to unprecedented demand for inpatient care driven by the Omicron variant.

SHY REECOVERY, THEN OMICRON HITI

According to CDC data, the seven-day average number of COVID-19 hospitalized patients was 60% higher than last week, at 16,458 beds per day. This is just 0.2% less than the peak national admissions a year ago.

    Data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services shows that over 82% of ICU beds nationwide are currently in use as of Thursday with over 27% in use for COVID-19 cases.

   Elective surgeries had just begun to rebound this fall from the delays and cancellations that began when the pandemic hit in March of 2020.

According to an Annals of Surgery January 2021 report, U.S. hospitals have lost $22.3 billion as a consequence of these cancellations between March 2020 and May 2020.

There is now a smaller staff available to care for COVID and elective patients.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows that approximately 450,000 healthcare workers – or 3.3% of industry workforce – left between February 2020 to November 2021.

    Many hospitals are only suspending specific procedures and for shorter periods than during the early pandemic, said Akin Demehin, director of policy at the American Hospital Association.

    “Hospitals have learned from that experience to identify those procedures that really do need to be done as quickly as possible and that allows them to be a bit more nuanced and how they might implement deferral or delays,” said Demehin.