In some SC counties, hospital beds are filling up. Is the coronavirus to blame?
As South Carolina posts record high daily numbers of residents testing positive for the coronavirus, some of the state’s hospitals are nearing capacity.
Last week, one rural hospital in Chesterfield County — where both the local sheriff and his chief deputy are in quarantine after testing positive for the virus — reported 95% of its acute-care beds were full. Its administrators report they are experiencing a peak of patients with COVID-19.
Data reported on the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control’s website Tuesday morning show six counties with hospital bed occupancy over 80%. The rate fluctuates daily — last week four counties recorded occupancy over 90% — but DHEC’s bed occupancy figures statewide have trended upward since March.
Some hospital spokespeople contacted by The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette said full beds simply represent a return to normal.
“The fact that our occupancy is high means we did a good job of matching our resources to the level of demand during this crisis,” wrote Lizz Walker, spokesperson for AnMed Health, whose hospital in Anderson County reported 81% occupancy on Tuesday, according to DHEC data.
On a call with reporters last week, DHEC officials said they were tracking the number of beds occupied by COVID-19 patients. Director of Public Health Joan Duwve said she has not seen “worrying trends” in those figures.
DHEC’s Nick Davidson added that the state has experienced an artificially low hospital occupancy rate with the cancelation of many elective surgeries in March after requests from S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster. “It’s not unusual for hospitals to be hovering in the 80 to 85% range during a non-emergent situation in South Carolina,” he said.
Still, some counties are facing surging case numbers — and full hospitals — as many South Carolinians return to life as usual.
In rural Chesterfield County, a late surge
As coronavirus outbreaks ebb in urban centers, the virus is increasingly finding its way into rural counties, with rates of cases and deaths now topping those in New York City boroughs, the Washington Post reported in late May.
In Chesterfield County, six residents have died after contracting the virus, and in recent weeks the average number of daily reported cases has increased, an analysis of DHEC data show. The county’s infection rate per 100,000 people now ranks among the top 10 in South Carolina.
And last week, the county’s 59-bed McLeod Health Cheraw hospital neared full capacity, according DHEC’s hospital occupancy data. In an interview last week, Dan Allen, the hospital’s chief nursing officer, said the facility was “right in the middle” of a COVID-19 patient peak that it had predicted based on internal and statewide models.
Allen said outbreaks at local senior care facilities had contributed to the number of COVID-19 patients in the Cheraw hospital’s care.
The Cheraw facility also serves neighboring Marlboro County, which saw its local hospital close in 2015 and has also experienced a growth in COVID-19 cases in recent weeks, according to DHEC data.
The Cheraw hospital has the capacity to transfer patients to other facilities within the McLeod system. “We’re sharing that patient load and the ability to care for those (patients) through all of the resources that we have organization-wide,” Allen said.
Some experts worry about the timing of outbreaks in rural areas coinciding with efforts to loosen restrictions on public life.
“Now a lot of people and a lot of policy makers have become impatient with this,” said Carrie Henning-Smith, deputy director of the Rural Health Research Center at the University of Minnesota. “And that’s happening at the exact moment some rural areas are starting to become hot spots.”
“I worry that rural areas have been overlooked, that we have forgotten about them,” Henning-Smith said.
Small hospitals reaching patient capacity could require people to drive further to seek care in emergency situations, for COVID-19 or other conditions, Henning-Smith said.
Across the country, rural populations are on average older, more likely to suffer from chronic conditions and face higher rates of unemployment. They also faced an early shortage of testing for COVID-19, reported The State Media Co. in April.
A return to normal?
High acute-care hospital bed occupancy rates cannot uniformly be attributed to COVID-19 patients.
Hospitals in other S.C. counties with high bed-occupancy rates in recent days reported no significant increases in COVID-19 patients, according to statements provided by spokespeople.
Walker, the spokesperson for AnMed Medical Center in Anderson County in the Upstate said in a statement that resuming elective procedures and surgeries, a step many South Carolina hospitals have taken over the past month, has filled beds.
DHEC’s data as of Tuesday reported a hospital occupancy rate of 81% in the county.
Hospitalizations due to COVID-19 have remained stable, Walker said. “We will also be vigilant to make sure we have the capacity for COVID-19 positive patients should those numbers increase in the months ahead,” she wrote in an email.
In the Lowcountry, Hardeeville’s Coastal Carolina Hospital reported bed occupancy of just over 80% on Tuesday. A spokesperson for Tenet Healthcare, which owns the hospital, said in an email COVID-19 patients have not increased significantly in recent weeks.
The pandemic has meant many have postponed needed medical care, the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson cited “rigorous infection prevention protocols” and procedures to treat COVID-19 patients separately from those with other illnesses. The hospital moved to resume elective procedures in late April, the newspapers reported previously.
If COVID-19 cases were to peak in a county, it wouldn’t happen overnight, DHEC’s Duwve told reporters last week. “Typically hospitalizations occur about a week to two weeks after someone is diagnosed with an infection,” Duwve said.
Joseph Bustos at The State contributed reporting.
This story was originally published June 9, 2020 at 3:33 PM with the headline "In some SC counties, hospital beds are filling up. Is the coronavirus to blame?."
