(Seguin) – Guadalupe County is responding to GRMC’s request for assistance in helping to prevent even more hospitalizations related to COVID-19. The court on Tuesday held an emergency meeting and unanimously authorized the use of American Rescue Funds to provide additional staffing using contracted paramedics at Guadalupe Regional Medical Center. The paramedics are needed to assist in GRMC’s regional infusion center for monoclonal antibody infusions.
Patrick Pinder, the Guadalupe County emergency management coordinator, says the request comes as the area continues to battle an increase in the COVID-19 virus and its Delta variant.
He says GRMC and the county have already submitted a request for some help with the infusion center from the Texas National Guard. However, Pinder says they have not yet heard back.
“In efforts to mitigate the hospital’s staffing needs, they asked for paramedics to come and back fill that. I’ve reached out to our partners in the EMS. We reached out to Schertz, Seguin and San Marcos who provide EMS service to Guadalupe County. They have offered to provide their paramedics to the hospital to do these antibody infusions,” said Pinder.
“To kind of give you an idea of what the hospital is seeing with the antibody infusion, they are seeing anywhere from 15 to 20 a day and that’s what they had last week. That number has gone up. They also stated that they had additional staffing and until we get these paramedics, they can do more of those. What the antibody infusions are doing is they are allowing for patients who test positive for COVID to get the antibody infusions and they are not required to stay in the hospital so they can actually send those patients home to recover at home.”
According to health officials, the antibody infusions have shown to reduce the COVID-19 related hospitalization or emergency room visits in patients at high risk for “disease progression.” Pinder says the procedure is said to take several hours by intravenous (IV) infusion.
“The paramedics would come in and support the GRMC nursing staff. They would do basic vitals. They would do IV fluids, things like that started. The supervision of the antibody infusion would still be under GRMC, and the documentation would be handed through them. What the county would be responsible would be overseeing the staffing for those paramedics. Those paramedics would be presented and signed-up through an online platform that the county used for the COVID-19 vaccines. Paramedics from any of those agencies could sign-up. That would be based on an agreed amount per hour,” said Pinder.
According to EMS supervisors, rough estimates for the providers could range anywhere between $35 to $45 an hour.
Guadalupe County Judge Kyle Kutscher says the agreement approved by the court on Tuesday ensures the necessary funding to assist GRMC’s handling of this pandemic.
“We wanted to have a written contract today just because of time constraints. This all really got fired up yesterday (Monday) afternoon which is why we weren’t able to post it on our normal agenda last week. What we talked about doing for a month may continue a little bit longer and because we have a considerable amount of ARPA funds, you see the budget amendment in front of you for $100,000 to help cover some of the costs being associated off the paramedics. Again, the original intent is for a month, but it could go on for a little longer or if they need more help and have available paramedics, we can go from two to four or five people right away and would have enough funds to handle that,” said Kutscher.
While there continues to be some changes and debate on the state level when it comes to providing some assistance, Kutscher believes, this latest response to GRMC is the right one for Guadalupe County.
“I do believe it would be beneficial even if the state allocated resources to the area because of the reduced hospital staffing that we have right now because of the real strain on hospital capacity numbers of what we have the ability to respond to. I think it will be beneficial if the state allocated those resources (so) that we kept these off-duty paramedics working in conjunction with those state resources to create the best scenario that we could be possible to respond in a big way,” said Kutscher.
Kutscher says assisting in the availability of this COVID-19 therapy is not only a step toward saving lives but also a way to support the local hospital and its staff who again continue to work around the clock in the prevention and spread of the virus.
“I don’t want to get into the numbers and all of that but we’ve had multiple conversations with the hospital and those numbers are changing everyday but there is a serious situation going on where we saw in the Trauma Service Area P which includes Guadalupe County all the available hospital beds. We saw that percentage increase from just a couple of weeks ago at five percent to almost 17 percent today. We’ve got reduced staffing numbers as it pertains to nurses all over the region, all over the state and they are just in a really tough spot so I think this is a way that we can step up and use some of the American Rescue Plan funding that really was sent to the county with the intent to help respond and help fight the pandemic for exactly what it was supposed to be used for,” said Kutscher.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced that Texas Department of State Health Services will also start bringing in healthcare workers from out-of-state to expand the number of antibody infusion centers across the state. Pinder says with the state’s commitment to now help, there is a likelihood that the National Guard might be directed elsewhere and would possibly not be available for the county making this paramedic partnership even more important for us here locally.
Abbott is also asking Texas hospitals to once again postpone nonessential medical procedures, but it is not yet known if that will happen. The governor urged Texans to get vaccinated, stating that it is the best defense against COVID-19.