MONROE, Wis. — In Wisconsin, the hospital bed crisis is a staffing crisis. Twenty months into the pandemic, the rate of staff departures started rising after last fall’s surge, a state organization says. Now in the midst of another surge where COVID hospitalizations have jumped from about 100 in July to about 1,700 currently, those departures are taking their toll..
The ICU has been in that state for months. Nurses from other departments are helping out as they can. When there's a crunch of patients needing intensive care, it can take 20 or 30 calls or elaborate transfer agreements to find another facility that can take them.
MONROE, Wis. — It’s quiet inside the intensive care unit at SSM Health’s hospital in Monroe. There’s a calm, steady energy as nurses move about, huddled together at the center desk or sweeping curtains closed behind them as they shield a patient, mercifully, from the camera lens and the public’s eye. Behind those curtains, the quiet belies the reality. Serving.