Hospitals Plead With Hoosiers to Mask Up As COVID Strains System
(INDIANAPOLIS) – Indianapolis hospitals are warning their patient load is approaching crisis levels, and pleading with Hoosiers to take coronavirus precautions seriously.
COVID hospitalizations statewide are down 11% this month, but Indy hospitals say their numbers haven’t gone down. Even across the state, there are twice as many patients as there were in the pandemic’s first wave in the spring, and five times as many as there were at the low point four months ago.
Hospitals say it’s not just the increased number of patients that’s creating strain on the system. Eskenazi Health chief nursing officer Lee Ann Blue says the patients in the current wave are sicker. And IU Health vice president Michelle Saysana says illnesses are more widespread than the first wave. Back then, she says, IU’s patients were concentrated at its hospitals in downtown Indianapolis and in Avon. Now, all 18 hospitals in the IU system
Central Indiana Hospitals Warn Of COVID Crisis
Screenshot by Jill Sheridan/WFYI
Central Indiana hospitals are pleading with people to help curb the spread of COVID-19.
The colder weather and holidays have caused a sharp spike in coronavirus cases in Indiana. IU Health VP of Quality, Safety and Performance Improvement Michelle Saysana said Indiana is a hotspot.
“With one of the highest rates of new cases per hundred thousand people in the entire nation,” Sayasna said.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention s COVID Data Tracker on Monday, Indiana currently ranks fourth in the nation with 93.5 COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents over the past seven days. Only Rhode Island, Tennessee and Ohio have had more cases per 100,000 residents over the past week.