This summer, the COVID-19 ward at Bemidji’s Sanford hospital was empty and had been for weeks.
It was Dr. Ramy Abdelfattah’s job to prepare the hospital for an influx of patients to brace for the first wave and then help care for them.
By fall, the cases had started coming. Soon the unit was full. The hospital had to double the size of its critical care unit.
Things got progressively worse, Abdelfattah said, one week after another.
Early this month, the hospital was treating 35 COVID patients at once its highest number yet.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, Abdelfattah said, he’s watched 30 patients die of COVID-19. Over the past six months, he said, there has been very little to be optimistic about.
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