Hilo Medical Center is over capacity and has opened 24 additional beds in its extended care unit to accommodate more patients.
HMC surpassed its capacity earlier this week. The extra beds are to help alleviate the amount of people kept in the emergency room.
“We started off with 20 holds (Thursday) morning in the ER, and it was a rough way to start the day,” said HMC spokeswoman Elena Cabatu. “We brought at least nine patients to the beds in the extended care unit to decompress the ER.”
With 20 people being held in the 28-bed emergency room, that leaves only eight beds and a number of hallway beds available for new patients.
Staff at HMC had been preparing to open the 24 additional beds as the omicron variant of COVID-19 caused an influx of patients.
“Preparation brings less stress to the situation, especially since we’ve opened this wing before,” Cabatu said. “We are not worrying about capacity issues now, but we’re not rejoicing either. We’re just going to remain focused on addressing all issues and taking care of our patients.”
Although more space has opened, the emergency department is experiencing longer than normal wait times with more non-COVID-19 patients coming in for care.
“The ER is seeing less COVID, but many patients are still sicker than normal,” Cabatu said. “Many people have delayed care due to the pandemic, and this is a result of that.”
Cabatu said the hospital is working hard get patients through the emergency department as quickly as possible.
“We just want to ask everyone to please bear with us. There is relief, but the ER is still beyond capacity,” Cabatu said. “People are continuing to come in with and without COVID, and we are doing our best for everyone.”
Making matters worse is that HMC is unable to discharge wait-listed patients to long-term care facilities that are closed for new admissions due to COVID-19 exposures.
The wait-listed patients at HMC, combined with the full hospital, means that patients waiting for beds to open up have to be held in the emergency department.
As of Thursday afternoon, there were 22 COVID-19 patients hospitalized at HMC.
Four patients, three unvaccinated and one vaccinated, are being treated in the intensive care unit, and are all on ventilators.
To help with the omicron surge, HMC now has 36 medical personnel funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency who are working at the hospital with COVID-19 patients, which has given the facility’s staff freedom to help non-COVID-19 patients.
“The emergency department has really experienced the brunt of this surge of COVID-19, and are so thankful for help from FEMA,” Cabatu said. “We always make sure to give them a warm welcome.”
Due to widespread availability of vaccines in the community, HMC will be closing its in-house vaccination clinic today.
KTA, Longs Drugs and Safeway are offering COVID-19 vaccinations, and county-supported vaccination sites and times can be found at bit.ly/hivaccineinfo.
Email Kelsey Walling at kwalling@hawaiitribune-herald.com