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Ida slams Louisiana hospitals brimming with virus patients
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IDA SLAMS LOUISIANA HOSPITALS BRIMMING WITH VIRUS PATIENTS

REBECCA SANTANA and MELINDA DESLATTEyesterday



1 of 5
FILE - In this Tuesday, Aug. 10, 2021 file photo, Medical staff from multiple
departments gather on the COVID ICU floor at Ochsner Medical Center in
Jefferson, La. Louisiana hospitals already packed with patients from the latest
coronavirus surge are now bracing for a powerful Category 4 hurricane, which is
expected to crash ashore Sunday, Aug. 29, 2021. (Chris Granger/The
Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate via AP, File)

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Southern Louisiana’s hospitals, already packed with
coronavirus patients from a fourth surge of the virus, were dealing Sunday with
another challenge — the howling Category 4 hurricane pounding the coast.

Lady of the Sea General Hospital in Lafourche Parish, near where Ida made
landfall, reported extensive roof damage. “All patients and staff are fine at
this time without injury; although, our hospital has sustained significant
damage,” hospital CEO Karen Collins said in a message relayed via Facebook. The
hospital’s phone system was down.

“Once it is safe to do so they will evacuate their small number of patients,”
state health department spokeswoman Aly Neel said in an email. Details on the
number of patients involved were not immediately available.

Another Lafourche Parish hospital, Thibodaux Regional Medical Center, reported a
partial generator failure to the state. Christina Stephens, a spokesperson for
Gov. John Bel Edwards, said the facility “had not lost all critical power.” She
said some patients were moved to another part of the facility and the state
health department was working with the hospital.

Ida struck as hospitals and their intensive care units were filled with patients
from the fourth surge of the COVID-19 pandemic, sparked by the highly contagious
delta variant and low vaccination rates across Louisiana.

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Hurricane Ida: More coverage
 * – EXPLAINER: Ida similar to Katrina, but stronger, smaller
 * – A Hurricane Ida unknown: Economic impact on region and US
 * – Hurricane Ida lashes Louisiana, knocks out New Orleans power

Daily tallies of new cases in Louisiana went from a few hundred a day through
much of the spring and early summer to thousands a day by late July. Gov. John
Bel Edwards told The Associated Press on Sunday that more than 2,400 COVID-19
patients are in Louisiana hospitals, saying the state was in a “very dangerous
place with our hospitals.”

The governor also said 22 nursing homes and 18 assisted living facilities have
been evacuated, though evacuating the largest hospitals was not an option
because there simply aren’t other places to send them. Anticipating that power
could be out for weeks in places, Edwards said a big focus will be on making
sure there is enough generator power and water at hospitals so they can keep up
with vital patient needs such as providing oxygen or powering ventilators.

“I hate to say it this way, but we have a lot of people on ventilators today and
they don’t work without electricity,” he said.

Officials at Ochsner Health, which runs the largest hospital network in
Louisiana, said roughly 15 of the network’s hospitals are in areas potentially
affected by Ida. The network evacuated some patients with particular medical
needs from small, rural hospitals to larger facilities.

Warner Thomas, president and CEO of Ochsner Health, said Sunday that the system
decided preemptively to evacuate a smaller hospital in St. Charles Parish when
the storm’s track shifted a bit east.

He said 35 patients were moved to other hospitals in the region over a little
less than three hours. When it comes to power at their facilities, Mike Hulefeld
said, they are in pretty good shape. Three of their facilities in areas affected
by Ida were moved to generator power in anticipation of losing city power.

Later Sunday the hospital system said they planned to evacuate all patients at
two other hospitals in the system on Monday as soon as conditions allowed. One
hospital, with 21 patients in Raceland, suffered roof damage while the other
facility with 45 patients in Houma had roof damage and power issues. Other
facilities have suffered roof damage, water leaks and some damage to windows
that required moving patients. At the hospital’s main campus just outside of New
Orleans, Thomas said they’d had problems with water leaks but no structural
issues and had performed some surgeries Sunday. They’ve had no injuries
reported.

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“We’ll know a lot more tomorrow morning when we have daylight,” he said.

Hulefeld said the hospital network ordered 10 days of supplies for facilities in
areas that might be affected by Ida, and everything arrived Saturday. Each
facility has backup power that was tested and a backup fuel truck on-site. Many
of the chain’s hospitals also have water wells in case city water goes out.

With people evacuating and potentially going to stay with relatives or in
shelters, medical officials said they are concerned the hurricane could
translate into more coronavirus infections in coming days just as
hospitalization numbers are going down. Thomas said the hospital system has seen
a decline in almost 200 coronavirus patients over the past week across all their
facilities.

Officials said Sunday they have been making the rounds and talking to staff in
the hospitals — often referred to as the “A Team” because they’re the ones that
go into lockdown when a hurricane arrives and work until the storm passes and
they can be relieved. The hurricane comes on top of the year and a half long
pandemic that has been an amazing stress on health care workers, and many are
sad and frustrated.

“Folks realize they got a job to do. There are people who need to be cared for,”
Thomas said. “But it does take a toll.”

Dr. Jeff Elder, medical director for emergency management at LCMC Health, said
the system’s six hospitals went into lockdown mode Sunday. Employees were going
to stay at the hospitals for the duration of the storm arrived Saturday and
early Sunday and would sleep there.

Elder said one of the first things their hospitals do when storms arrive is
discharge patients who are able to leave. However, the patient load is high
because of the pandemic so they’re not able to reduce by much. He said the
hospitals in the system are more robust since 2005’s Hurricane Katrina.

“We’ve learned a lot since 2005,” he said. Key pieces of infrastructure are now
raised to keep them out of flooding. For example, at University Medical Center
in New Orleans, which was built after Katrina, the generator is raised, diesel
supplies are protected and the first floor doesn’t have essential services so
even if flood waters get that high nothing essential is lost.

All hospitals in the system have generator backup power, Elder said. He also
stressed that communication is now much better between hospitals in the hospital
system as well as with various levels of government.

__

Melinda Deslatte reported from Baton Rouge. Associated Press reporter Kevin
McGill contributed from New Orleans. Follow Rebecca Santana on Twitter
@ruskygal.

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