There were nine COVID-19-positive patients at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital on Thanksgiving Day, and on Friday, there were 90, according to Cottage Health President Ron Werft.
The number of new coronavirus cases as well as the positivity rate of the tests (how many tests have a positive result) are still increasing, indicating the current growth is far from over, he said during the Department’s briefing. Public Health in Santa Barbara County.
Public health officials stressed the importance of not gathering during the holiday season, fearing it would lead to an increase in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, and a week into the new year, those fears have become a reality.
“During the holiday season, our numbers have increased,” Public Health Director Van Do-Reynoso said on Friday. “I was worried. I was afraid that if people gathered, we would have more growth than growth.”
There have been 178 people hospitalized with COVID-19 in the county since Thursday, and the county has reported 24 deaths related to COVID-19 this week. Some of the deaths took place in December, and others took place in early January.
Thirteen of the people who recently died of COVID-19 lived on the south coast, 10 lived in the Santa Maria Valley and two lived in the Santa Ynez Valley.
The updated numbers were not available on Friday due to a problem with the state reporting system, public health officials said.
At the beginning of the pandemic, hospitals were worried about the lack of personal protective equipment and ventilators, Werft said, but these are not challenges for the current growth of patients.
Cottage now has 98 ventilators, 21 of which are used in patients with COVID-19 and a large amount of PPE, Werft said.
Concerns now concern the capacity of beds in intensive care units with hospital staff, where patients with the worst problems are treated.
There was a COVID-19 isolation unit operating at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital on Thanksgiving Day, and now there are five, including two ICU units, Werft said.
One of the surgical intensive care units has been transformed into a unit for the care of patients with COVID-19, he added, and there is a designated intensive care unit for non-COVID-19 patients.
Cottage has 45 intensive care beds, but the right staff can reduce this number to 57. There are plans that could bring this number even further to 70 intensive care beds at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital and eight at Goleta Valley Cottage Hospital, according to Werft.
An ICU bed can only be used if there are enough staff members to monitor the patient in it, Werft said. In the past two weeks, Cottage has generally had five to eight beds with ICU staff, he added.
“As we look at the growing demand for our hospitals in Santa Barbara, beds will not be the challenge, PPE and ventilators will not be the challenge,” Werft said. The problem is critical care staff. Although we are employed right now, beyond what we would normally see, the ability to identify, recruit and expand to this type of application is very challenging. “
While there are ongoing growth plans to create more capacity to treat the growing number of patients, the need for more staff continues.
“There is a limit to what we can handle if the numbers continue to grow at this rate,” Werft said.
As hospitals across the country run out of space, Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital has received more and more transfer requests. The hospital sees two to four transfer requests every 24 hours, according to Werft.
To receive a transfer patient, the hospital must have sufficient capacity to operate at a higher level of care, and the other hospital must have exhausted all possible solutions, Werft said.
“We need to have resources, be at a higher level of care and not compromise our ability to provide care to our local community,” he added, noting that only a few requests have been accepted recently.
The county dashboard notes that the three hospitals in the county already use 11 emergency beds for the treatment of COVID-19 positive patients.
Valea Lompoc Medical Center and Marian Regional Medical Center in Santa Maria are the other county hospitals that treat patients with COVID-19, mostly in Santa Barbara and Santa Maria.
LVMC CEO Steve Popkin said Friday in a weekly update that there are 12 positive COVID-19 patients there.
“This volume of patients in the county puts huge pressure on hospitals and especially on patient care staff,” he said. “The three hospital systems in Santa Barbara County work very closely together with Santa Barbara County and other stakeholders and have managed to manage the situation effectively. As difficult as it is here, there are other parts of the state that are in a much worse situation. We believe that things will change soon, and until they succeed, we will all do our best to meet the needs and expectations of our communities. “
Werft said Cottage Health hopes to open a drive-through vaccination site at Goleta Valley Cottage Hospital next week for health care providers and other eligible people in the first phase.
Cottage began administering vaccines the day they arrived in the county and now administers about 3,400 staff, he said.
– Noozhawk staff writer Jade Martinez-Pogue can be contacted at . (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Sign in with Noozhawk on Facebook.