GRMC officials encouraging people to help stop the spread
(Seguin) — COVID-19 hospitalizations continue to rise at Guadalupe Regional Medical Center. Elizabeth McCown, the director of risk & legal affairs and the public information officer for GRMC, says the number of patients continues on an upward trend.
“Today, we have 44 patients hospitalized with COVID. Our seven-day moving average for COVID hospitalizations is 43 a day. Just to remind you last week when I sent out a press release, that number was 33 a day so we have seen an increase in our patient load here of COVID patients that have needed admission and one of the statistics that people like to ask us is how many of those are fully vaccinated versus unvaccinated and of the COVID patients that we have currently today, 89 percent of them are not fully vaccinated. So, we have been seeing over the past five to six weeks, a surge of patients and we are now at the most patients that we have had during this surge, and we’ve been looking at our data and comparing it to our prior surges and we’ve already exceeded the number of COVID patients that we have hospitalized here at GRMC in the two prior surges in total. So, we are hopeful that that trend will start to go down, but we certainly don’t know,” said McCown.
McCown says they are encouraging people to get vaccinated and to take other mitigation steps to try to help stop the spread. She says there’s not much more that they can do to make room for the number of patients that seems to be growing week-to-week and day-by-day.
“We are having conversations with other hospitals daily to ensure that EMS providers and ambulances that show up have somewhere to take the patients because it is not just us but it is hospitals all in this area and in Texas period — that the inn is full and we are trying to treat everybody that shows up but we only have so many hands and so many beds and it’s a scary proposition,” said McCown.
Dr. Charles Nolan, a palliative care physician, says GRMC officials are already having to make some of these tough decisions, because they just can’t take on some of the patients that they normally would see.
“Guadalupe Regional is the higher referral center for smaller hospitals in Gonzales and surrounding counties and Wimberly. We would take their patients. And we’re having to say, they just said in a staff meeting today in Gonzales ‘there’s a young person aged forty-five that’s on a ventilator with COVID, can you take them to help us,’ and we can’t because we’re full. Already, we’ve canceled elective surgeries that would require a day or two in the hospital after the surgery. We’re still doing emergency surgeries; of course, we have to, but this is having a big impact. And I’m pretty certain that people are avoiding coming to the hospital when they should come for their heart attack symptoms, or their stroke symptoms, or whatever because they’re afraid of COVID. And so, this is having a wide-ranging effect on our healthcare system,” said Nolan.
GRMC officials are encouraging people to get vaccinated. They want the public to do anything that it can to reduce the spread. McCown says there are layers of protection that can be used to help keep people safe and healthy.
“So, we talk about the masking and the distancing as some easy levels of protection and layers of protection and then when we talk about the vaccine being a vital layer of protection in the fight against COVID and then other treatments that we have in our arsenal when we are fighting COVID include those monoclonal antibodies and all the different techniques and medicines that the physicians have advanced with so quickly to treat this disease but we certainly want to encourage the public to continue to mask, to continue to distance, to continue to wash your hands, to continue to consider the vaccine if you are an appropriate candidate and to get tested if you think that you are sick because the window for the monoclonal antibodies is not extensive so some people don’t catch it in time to get that treatment. Like Dr. Nolan said this is a community issue and it’s going to take a community effort to get through it together. We want to be here to treat everybody, and we don’t ever want to have to contemplate turning anybody away because we simply don’t have run but that’s what we are looking at,” said McCown.
COVID-19 vaccinations are routinely available in the Seguin area. In addition to doctors’ offices and pharmacies, the Guadalupe County Office of Emergency Management is again teaming up with the National Guard to host more vaccination clinics. The vaccination clinics will be held from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. this Saturday at the Redwood Community Center, located at 2045 Spruce St. in San Marcos; from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 1 at the Guadalupe County Services Center, located at 1052 FM 78 in Schertz; and from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 4 at Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church, located at 409 W. Krezdorn St. here in Seguin. All of the shots are free, and no appointment or registration are needed.